High-Speed Feeding Video

[skyedog]

It's amazing to watch every aspect of this video from the force the chameleon's tongue as it's extending, to the concentration it's using to accurately hit it. I watched this over and over as it's tongue reached it's "apex" (for lack of a better term I guess) and the back end of the chameleon lifted off the into the air, the whole time maintaining it's balance bringing in a good size food item. I agree that keeping the cricket on that screen was a miracle in itself. Thank you for sharing this with us. Incredible job.

 

[panthercrazy]

That is some awesome stuff Chris! Wow, Amazing! Thanks so much for sharing with us

 

[Lizardlover]

wow truly awesome chris, and interesting how the tongue was so long.

 

[jojackson]

Awesome Nature, cant beat it! Very cool stuff Chris!

 

[ciafardo 4]

I must say you always provide fascinating footage Dr. Anderson

 

[ChameleonAyer]

Wow, that was soooo amazing!!!!

 

[Jerm]

Pretty sweet Chris!

 

[luevelvet]

Great job Chris. I'm curious, what exactly are you researching? I don't mean that in any negative way at all, just curious what the scope of your projects are and of what significance these videos are in regards to them(other than being extremely fascinating).

I will echo previous sentiments, you have a very admirable job.
Not to mention you're working with a species I've been looking into.

Luis

 

[Dave Weldon]

Howdy Chris,

Neat stuff .

Are you plotting acceleration curves? It would be fun to see what they look like .

I was watching at what point the tongue shape changed from a stub to a cup. It looked like it changed at around 2/3 of the way to the target. Are you seeing stub-to-cup patterns within the same chameleon, between chameleons of the same species, between species?

 

[Marty]

Wow...that was a great video! Well done!

 

[whispers352]

That was absolutely amazing!

 

[Orchidartist]

Insane. I cant wait to show my kids. Thank you !

 

[Chris Anderson]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you all liked the video.

I'm curious, what exactly are you researching? I don't mean that in any negative way at all, just curious what the scope of your projects are and of what significance these videos are in regards to them(other than being extremely fascinating).

Luis - My dissertation is on the effect of temperature on ballistic tongue projection and tongue retraction in chameleons but I have a few side projects that I'm also working on. I'm trying to get an initial pub out on my findings so far but I've been shooting high and so far it hasn't been accepted where we've submitted it. Once that is out though, it should be a lot clearer as to what I'm looking at.

Are you plotting acceleration curves? It would be fun to see what they look like .

Dave - Actually yes, that is one of the performance parameters I'm looking at. I'll try to pull up a sample of some of the performance traces. I'm looking at velocity, acceleration and power output.

I was watching at what point the tongue shape changed from a stub to a cup. It looked like it changed at around 2/3 of the way to the target. Are you seeing stub-to-cup patterns within the same chameleon, between chameleons of the same species, between species?

To be honest I've not looked at that yet. At the moment I'm mostly focused on the activity of the accelerator and retractor muscles and the muscle responsible for that is the pouch retractor muscle. I'd like to take a look at the pouch retractor muscle in the future though. The best way to look at the question you're getting at would be through electromyography which is a technique I'm working with as well. Unfortunately it is a very difficult technique with chameleons and I'm still working on perfecting it. Once I do, I will try to look at additional muscle activity.

Chris

 

[Kent67]

Hey Chris, Fabián and I were discussing this amazing video the other night and wondered if the b&w camera was used for any specific reason. Sorry if I missed it in the thread, but still wondering. Thanks for sharing it. I love watching the back feet rise up and come right back down where they were!

 

[SimonBolivar]

Wow. Thats someting i've been wanting to see. Thank for posting it up!

 

[Chris Anderson]

Hey Chris, Fabián and I were discussing this amazing video the other night and wondered if the b&w camera was used for any specific reason. Sorry if I missed it in the thread, but still wondering. Thanks for sharing it. I love watching the back feet rise up and come right back down where they were!

Kent,

In order to film at that type of frame rate, you need to have an incredible amount of light. Most of what we film in the lab are salamanders and lighting up a salamander to film at an even faster frame rate without heat and dessication issues can be difficult. There are some versions of the high-speed cameras that are color but they take even more light then the B&W in addition to being even more expensive then they already are. For scientific purposes, we don't need color to answer the questions I'm looking at and by using the B&W, we can get away with less light which is important on small, moist skinned ectotherms. Further, our current questions revolve around how temperature effects feeding performance and more light makes it more difficult to control temp.

Chris

 

[Pure]

Very interesting stuff Chris.

That video is awesome. I can't wait to see other species.