How Do Chameleons Change Color?

2015-03-11

[public] 2.99M views, 59.9K likes, 874 dislikes audio only

New research shows chameleons actively tune nano-crystals to change their color.

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Chameleon research in Nature Communications: http://bit.ly/1FacHO2

"Photonic Crystals Cause Active Colour Change in Chameleons"

This research was carried out by Jérémie Teyssier, Suzanne V. Saenko, Dirk van der Marel & Michel C. Milinkovitch at the University of Geneva Department of Quantum Matter Physics and the Laboratory of Artificial and Natural Evolution (LANE)

Original videos of chameleons are here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIRiCwHlUd8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdQvtP8EKrM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSH7EmXFMac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egwueh6wj1E

Additional details available at: http://www.lanevol.org/LANE/chameleon_colour_change.html

For correspondence: Michel C. Milinkovitch, Laboratory of Artificial & Natural Evolution (LANE), Dept. of Genetics & Evolution, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

The melanin spreading out video is courtesy of Richard Wheeler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL0USeWjTHQ

http://www.richardwheeler.net

Special thanks to:

Harry, Jo, Daniella and Raquel for helping me produce and film this video - it looks great thanks to you!