Chameleons, Already Dealt Unfair Share of Cool Traits, Also Have Fluorescent Heads

Maybe their moms told them nobody likes a showoff. That would explain why many species of chameleon are hiding fluorescent bone bumps on their heads that scientists only just discovered. Chameleons also have independently moving eyeballs, superlative tongues and sophisticated color-changing skills. The animals might use their glowing head bumps as signals to each other. These patterns of dots are invisible to a human eye, but may light up deep blue to the eye of another chameleon in a shaded forest. Scientists knew that chameleons have bony crests and bumps called tubercles on their skulls, and that these bone shapes vary between species. But "we were always wondering about the function of the tubercles on the head," says David Prötzel, a herpetologist at Zoologische Staatssammlung München in Germany. Then a photo on Flickr caught Prötzel's attention. The picture showed a chameleon called Calumma gastroaenia. The photographer, Paul Bertner, had put ...