IT’S CHAMELEON KARMA, BABY
IT’S not an optical illusion – you may well need your glasses to catch a glimpse of these tiny chameleons.
They are among 16 hatched in the past two weeks at Taronga Zoo. Just a few centimetres long now, they will soon grow to the size of a human hand.
Zookeeper Michael McFadden said, contrary to popular belief, chameleons change colour not to match their environment but to match their mood, temperature and social interaction.
“Adults can change from green to really dark, almost black in a matter of seconds,” he said. “Their eyes, they have 360 degree vision, one eye can look forward can look forward while the other eye looks backward.”
Equally impressive is their tongue, which shoots out of their mouths like a rocket as far as their body length to eat insects. “They have a prehensile tail, which can be used to grab onto tree branches,” he said.