Short Stuff: Chameleons

In today's short stuff, we bust a few myths about cute little chameleons.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, you welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and Jerry's
sitting in for our producer Dave C. Couston. And this
is short stuff. When you put all that info together,
you got a short stuff. Okay, that's right, let's go, Chuck.
It's about chameleons. Is that what we're doing? Yes, we

(00:24):
are doing one on chameleons, which I think was, um,
surprisingly fascinating because everything I know about chameleons I learned
from watching paint commercials. I love chameleons. Um, we don't
call them chameleons. We call them lizards when they when
we see them all over the place here in Georgia.
Wait a minute, they're chameleons up there. Yeah, I didn't

(00:48):
know that. What do you think all those lizards are?
I thought there were skinks? What's a skink? Is that
a blue tail? I don't know. Maybe there are skinks.
If a has a bluetail is a skink and they
are neural toxic. I've met somebody once who was like,
don't let your dog anywhere near those things. I knew
a cat once that had cross eye because it had
eaten too many of those lizards. But yeah, apparently they

(01:12):
have a neurotoxin. Uh. Well, now I'm looking up a
picture of a chameleon, and I think you are completely right.
This is not chameleons that we see here in Georgia.
They're skinks. They're skinks, but we call them lizzards anyway,
So I was still right. Yeah, you're still right. How
do you spell skink? I think just like it sounds

(01:33):
like you think, Well, these aren't exactly skinks, although we
do have skinks. What about gecko? A leopard gecko? It
could be one of them. Maybe. So I saw a
skink one time at the lake that was with tail
about a foot long. Oh oh my god. Well, now
I don't know what we see all over the place
in the woods and on our deck. It's probably geck goes. Okay,

(01:57):
I think I think if it's not a skink, alright,
we're talking chameleons. Yeah, okay, I got leopard geckos, if
I'm not mistaken. Mo loves chasing those things. Oh my god,
she loves chasing lizards. Are these the ones that puff
up their neck in a balloon? Yeah, they're great they're great.

(02:20):
Little lizards are fun. They'll drop their tail if you
get too close to them and they need to escape. Right, No, chuck,
that's absolutely wrong. But the first fact about chameleons is
they can't regrow their tail. If their tails ever pulled off,
it hurt and it's not coming back. That's they don't.
They don't release their tail like well, plenty of lizards

(02:42):
do that though, right, yeah, like a gecko. Yeah. Um,
but that's not what people think of when they think
of chameleons, that they can't regrow their tail. That's that's
pretty arcane. That's a deep cut as far as chameleon
facts are concerned. What most people think of when they
think of chameleons is that they can change color. And
everybody knows they can change color because they lend in
with their surroundings. Right, wrong, men, we're both just batting

(03:05):
zero right now. Yeah, we're busting some chameleon myths, and
that that is a myth that chameleons will be green
if they're next to a leaf, or they will be
brown if they are on your deck or your mulch Uh.
That is not true. That that may accidentally happen to
be true if you look and say, oh, look though
the same color as my deck. But it's not because

(03:26):
they're trying to blend in. They are trying to control
their body temperature and uh, but they do try to
blend into the green as their sort of natural state, right, Um,
But they're not doing anything in that point, Like you said,
it's their natural state, like they're just like it worked
out that way. Yeah, it just worked out perfectly, almost

(03:47):
like it was designed by the hand of God himself
or herself. If you watch dog, Um, but they're green.
Well we'll get to why they're green, because I thought
that was a pretty interesting thing. But when they're when
they're agitated, when they're excited, when they're happy to see you, um,
when they are scared, when they're trying to like scare

(04:08):
off somebody else, they're feeling emotional. And just like with humans,
when you feel emotional, there's all sorts of hormones churning, right. Well,
that's what happens with the chameleon too. When those hormones
get to churning, they start to change color. Um, and
they do it in in the same way that just
about every other thing that changes color in the world

(04:29):
every other animal changes color changes color. Um, but it's
slightly different in that the kind of structures that a
chameleon uses is much different than what we understood it
to be before. Yeah, I believe if I'm remembering correctly.
With our good old friend the octopus, they have chromatophores,

(04:50):
and with the chameleon they are ritophores. Yeah, so I
saw that. I also saw somewhere that a metaphors is
like the umbrella term for all the different kinds of
color changing cells, and that eritophores, like chameleons have, are
a specific kind. But that the big difference between like

(05:14):
an octopus and a chameleon as far as color changing goes, well,
there's two. One is that, um, the octopus is using
pigment filled sacks and then they're they're changing they're opening
or closing the muscles surrounding each sack to like show
or not show that color, and they have different colors
in their sacks. With a chameleon, they're actually using like

(05:38):
crystals that that they're called aritaphors because they're iridescent. Right. Yeah,
And you know what, that's a great cliffhanger, and we're
right in the middle. We are in the middle of
a cliffhanger, like I'm about to vomit. I've never been
in the middle of a cliffhanger before, and it's it's
a very uncomfortable place to be. It's kind of like,
hold on, I'm not done. When I was in maybe

(06:00):
second grade, I was on the bus and the bus
came to a red light and it came to a stop.
But have you ever been in a vehicle that never
fully came to a stop. It it wasn't moving forward
any longer. And there's like this incomplete feeling like something
is terribly wrong. Like that Twilight Zone episode where Darren

(06:20):
from which like flips a coin and it lands on
its side, and after that you can hear everybody thoughts.
The same thing happens when a bus doesn't fully stop
at a red light. That's what I feel like right
this moment, in the middle of the cliffhanger. I can
hear your thoughts and I want to throw up. We'll
be right back. Game that you should know that you

(06:44):
should know it knows. But Josh Clark, all right, everyone,
Josh just vomited. I had to turn off my my

(07:05):
computer camera. Thank you for the towel. So now I'm
only listening, but we left it the cliffhanger where you
were talking about the crystal like cells called a ritofors.
That what they do instead of um, squeezing pigment is
they work with actual light and color and light across

(07:26):
the entire color spectrum, even if human beings can't see it. Yes,
that's the huge that's the huge thing. Like if you
have a pigment stack, you can you can reflect the
color that that pigment reflects it, and so it's showing
blue or red or yellow or orange or something like that,
and a ritofor can reflect whatever color needs to be
reflected at that moment. And like you said, even once

(07:48):
that humans can't see impossible colors is what they're called amazing.
It really makes you wonder, like what dazzling displays chameleons
are putting on. We just can't even see it because
our eyes aren't it's not possible for our eyes to
pick up light on that that that part of the
visible spectrum or the non visible spectrum. Right. And there

(08:09):
are a lot of species of chameleon and depending on
the species, they have different kind of color changing capabilities. UM,
some are way more vibrant and bright. Some aren't quite
as vibrant and bright um. Some of them have a
lot of variants and the kind of colors, but it's
a general thing where they can basically use any color

(08:30):
on the spectrum, like it's all open. All those those
wavelengths are open for business for these chameleons. And it
has to do with again, whether the chameleon the rotifors
um or the muscle surrounding each rotors relaxed or agitated,
And that has to do with hormones. So when it's relaxed,

(08:51):
the muscles are contracted around it and it's just Reford
reflecting short wavelength light like blue right right. And then
when they're excited, I did, those cells go farther apart,
and they can get more red and orange, yes, which
is how they change color. But because they're excited and
those hormones are churning, that's what triggers those erotophores to

(09:13):
expand or contract um, which is a difference between chameleons
and octopi. That um octopied control. They're uh their chramatophor
sacks with neurons, so it's like instantaneous opening or closing.
With chameleons, it takes I mean it's fast, but it
takes a little longer because the hormones have to go

(09:34):
signal the cells to open or clothes, depending on whether
the animals excited or relaxed. Yeah, and here to me
is one of the coolest facts is the actual natural
sort of color of a chameleon is more of a yellow,
but when you see them, they're usually green when they're
just chilling out. And that's because and it's very simple everybody,

(09:56):
when they're relaxed, they're reflecting blue light in blue and
yellow make green and the neat that's all there is
to do it. Yeah, very cool. I love that one too.
Um So, those those erota force chuck are actually beneath
their skin, you can see them, and they're able to
reflectract light well because their skin, the outer layers of

(10:17):
skin are actually transparent. And apparently chameleons have a little
um quick change act where if they're really trying to
get vibrant in a hurry, they'll just like shed those
clothes like um Otho in Beetle Juice when he enters
the spotlight. You remember, his leisure suit just gets pulled
or No, his suit gets pulled off and he's wearing

(10:39):
a leisure suit underneath. That might be my favorite movie
all of all time. I think, I think doing a sequel.
They're developing a sequel, same cast, I think, so. I mean,
I think everyone's there. I can't wait. I'm behind it. Okay,
same here man. One of my favorite parts ever that
movie is when uh, he's in the waiting room mhm

(11:03):
with a guy with a little head, and he just
leans over and goes, let me ask you something. How
do you get him down so small? It's good stuff?
How do you get him down so small? One of
my favorite lines? And then the song of course, I'll
eat anything you want me to eat. I'll swallow anything
you want me to swallow. Remember that? No, what are

(11:24):
we talking about? Beetle juice? Yes, he has the song
I'll eat anything you want me to eat. I'll swallow
anything you want me to swallows. Come on down? Is
that in his ad? I think, yeah, I'll just classic.
It is classic. I was watching Michael Keaton's early stand
up earlier, No, Yesterday, how did that go? It was? Okay?

(11:48):
He wasn't great, um, but you could see the seed. Okay,
I can imagine it. Can see him being like real
judgy and like come on, will be a bone head
kind of facial expression and smoking cigarette and no, it
wasn't that. You should check it out. It's interesting, Okay,
I'll I will, because I definitely have no idea what
it's going to be like then. And I met him
one day, I know, right, Yeah, he lived across the

(12:13):
street from where you're shooting and just sort of entertained
that the pas and the driveway for ten minutes one day.
Very nice, very nice guy. Oh yeah, yeah, he was
super nice. I'm really glad to hear that he's not.
He's a chameleon. You can blend into wherever he is.
A group of pas in the driveway, no problem, or
um a rock in the desert, rock in the pain

(12:35):
and desert. Are we done with chameleons? I think so, man,
I think we're done. I think there's no one listening anymore.
It's just you and me now, agreed. All right, Well, goodbye, Chuck.
This is the end of short stuff. Stuff you Should
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(12:56):
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