MissLissa
Avid Member
Does anyone know what purpose having brilliantly coloured pajamas would serve? Particularly those brilliant panther cham males.
My hypotheses:
My hypotheses:
- Chams sleep at night, and most nocturnal predators are at least partially colourblind. The ability for animals to perceive colour also fades at night as the wavelengths and amount of available light shifts. Red is generally the first to fade to grey or black, for example. It is difficult to discern colour properly at night even for humans, who have fairly good colour vision. If seen in black and white or other restricted palates, I could see a cham's natural pattern being excellent camouflage as it would break up their shape quite well. Even if it didn't work better than a more actively camouflaged state, it may at least not be a huge detriment to the breeding population. It's never just "survival of the fittest/best", after all: often it's just "survival of the good enough"!
- I also heard someone hypothesize that it's a form of passive advertisement: if a male is sleeping and a female passes by, his brilliant colours may keep her sticking around long enough for him to wake up. Alternatively, it may scare off potential rivals in the same manner. I have a few issues with this, since chams generally sleep when it's dark and if one cham is sleeping, probably all of them are!
