The oldest known chameleon fossil is from the extinct species Chamaeleo caroliquarti. It was found in Europe and is 26 million years old.
Chameleons can project their tongue up to 2.2 times their body length.
Chameleons have a very poor sense of smell.
The word Rieppeleon is named after the scientist Olivier Rieppel.
The word Furcifer is derived from the Latin word “furci” or forked.
The word Rhampholeon is taken from the Latinized Greek “rhamphos leon” meaning crawling lion.
Chameleons change color by rearranging a lattice of nanocrystals in one of their top layers of skin cells called iridophores. Chameleons can then stretch this layer, broadening the nanocrystalline lattice, thereby causing it to reflect a different wavelength of light.
The word Chamaeleo is derived via Latin from the Greek word khamaileon. It roughly translates to ground lion. Khamai means on the ground and leon means lion.
The smallest chameleon species is Brookesia micra with an adult length just over 1 inch (29mm). It hatches from an egg no bigger than a grain of rice!
Furcifer labordi (Labord’s Chameleon) has the shortest lifespan of only 4-5 months. It also has the shortest lifespan of any tetrapod!