The chameleon tongue accelerates towards its target at over 1642m per second. Chameleons rarely miss their intended food item.
The word Brookesia is named after the British naturalist Joshua Brookes.
Chameleons have laterally compressed bodies. This enables them to warm up quickly by presenting a larger surface area to the sun. It also helps some chameleon species blend in among the similarly shaped leaves in their environment.
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 oldest known chameleon fossil is from the extinct species Chamaeleo caroliquarti. It was found in Europe and is 26 million years old.
Furcifer labordi (Labord’s Chameleon) has the shortest lifespan of only 4-5 months. It also has the shortest lifespan of any tetrapod!
Chameleons can project their tongue up to 2.2 times their body length.
The horns on a chameleon are made up of ringlike segments of inner bone covered by a hard keratin-like skin.
The largest chameleon species by weight is Calumma parsonii (Parson’s Chameleon).
The word Rieppeleon is named after the scientist Olivier Rieppel.