Meller’s chameleon

Scientific name: Chamaeleo melleri

Country: Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania

Continent: Africa

Diet: Insects, spiders, worms, and smaller lizards and birds

Food & feeding: Carnivore

Habitats: Tropical grassland

Conservation status: No data

Relatives: Veiled chameleon, rhinoceros iguana

Description: Meller’s chameleon is the largest chameleon from the African mainland. Males can measure over 60 cm in length; females are slightly smaller, but are otherwise indistinguishable from males.  Meller’s chameleon can be distinguished by the small, single horn on the tip of its snout and by its colouration - usually a deep forest green with yellow-white vertical stripes. Characteristically for chameleons they have prehensile (grasping) tails, projectile tongues, Y-shaped feet for gripping and the ability to change colour. They also have highly specialised eyes that can move independently. This enables them to look for prey and predators at the same time.

Lifestyle: Chameleons are stealth hunters. Their slow movements and greenish colouration provide effective camouflage from predators. When hunting, both eyes focus on the prey, allowing the chameleon to judge its victim’s exact distance and position perfectly. It captures its prey with its incredible tongue that stretches over half the chameleon’s body length, and shoots out of its mouth with an acceleration of up to 500 m/s². The tongue is wet and sticks to the prey item like glue, forming a suction cup at the tip which enables chameleons to capture larger prey, including small birds and lizards.

Family & friends: Chameleons are usually solitary animals.

Keeping in touch: Chameleons use colours and patterns to camouflage and communicate with potential mates and rivals. Their skin has three main layers. A transparent top layer and two layers below containing special pigment (colour) cells called chromatophores. One layer has either red or yellow pigment cells and the layer beneath has blue or white pigment cells. Tiny muscles cause these cells to expand or shrink, creating a colour change in the chameleon as different pigment cells are displayed or overlaid. These muscles are directly controlled by the chameleon’s nervous system and enable it to respond extremely rapidly, usually within seconds, to new environmental and social situations. Basking chameleons will darken the side of their body facing the sun to maximise heat absorption while their shaded side remains camouflaged. Black spots indicate stress, and some males will flush red when trying to impress a female. 

Growing up: A female can lay 40 -50 eggs usually just once a year and these babies can live up to 12 years in captivity.

Conservation news: As with all forest inhabitants, there is the ever-present risk of habitat loss.