Page 15 - Chameleon

appears, says Devi Stuart-Fox, an evo-
lutionary biologist at the University of
Melbourne, who’s been studying cha-
meleon color for more than a decade.
When there’s less light, she says, such
as on a tree deep inside a Malagasy
forest, brown to black pigment cells
called melanin flood to the skin’s sur-
face and cause the chameleon to appear
darker—and thus more camouflaged.
“It’s like putting a dark wash on
everything,” Stuart-Fox says.

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