Reptiles Database

Order Squamata
Suborder Sauria
Infraorder Iguania

Family Chamaeleonidae (Chameleons)


Chamaeleo ellioti, Ruanda,
© Peter Uetz

Appearance: Chamaeleons are probably best known for their ability to change colors. Apart from that, they have a number of other characteristics that make them the most easily recognizable lizards: their body is laterally compressed and their heads often possess extensively developed horns and crests. Their tail is prehensile and 2 or 3 of their toes are fused to form grasping pads, making them ideally adapted to arboreal life. Chameleons can move their eyes independently and through their position on protruding cones they have three-dimensional vision when they look ahead. This allows them to focus their prey ahead of them. By means of their extremely elongated and protractable tongue they can catch prey at a distance corresponding to their own body length.

Distribution: Most members of the family occur in Africa and Madagascar, but a few species can be found in the Middle East, Asia, and Southern Europe.

Habitat: mostly arboreal; from desert areas to tropical rain forests. Brookesia species are somewhat untypical chameleons in that they are ground-dwellers without prehensile tails.

Size: from 2.5 cm (Brookesia sp.) to more than 50 cm (Chamaeleo melleri, Furcifer oustaleti).

Food: mostly insectivorous, large species may prey on vertebrates too.

Behaviour: diurnal, arboreal, slowly-moving lizards; territorial.

Reproduction: Most chameleons are egg-laying (oviparous), but some give birth to living offspring (e.g. Chamaeleo ellioti, picture above).

List of genera:

Subfamily Brookesiinae

  1. Brookesia
  2. Rhampholeon
  3. Rieppeleon

Subfamily Chamaeleoninae

  1. Bradypodion
  2. Calumma
  3. Chamaeleo (including the subgenera Trioceros and Chamaeleo)
  4. Furcifer
  5. Kinyongia
  6. Nadzikambia

References:

Böhme, Wolfgang & Klaver, Charles J. J.(1997)
Das Tierreich - Part 112: Chamaeleonidae
de Gruyter, Berlin, New York

Klaver,C. & Böhme,W. (1986)
Phylogeny and classification of the Chamaeleonidae (Sauria) with special reference to hemipenis morphology
Bonner Zool. Monogr. 22: 5-60

Müller, R.; Lutzmann, N. & Walbröl, U. 2004
Furcifer pardalis - Das Pantherchamäleon.
Natur und Tier Verlag (Münster), 127 pp.

Necas, Petr (1995)
Chamäleons - Bunte Juwelen der Natur
Ed. Chimaera bei Bücher Kreth
ISBN 3-930612-0-2-X

Necas, P. & Schmidt, W. (2004)
Mysterious Mini-Dragons: the stump-tailed chameleons Brookesia and Rhampholeon.
Reptilia (GB) (35): 10-21

Necas, P. & Schmidt, W. (2004)
Stump-tailed Chameleons. Miniature Dragons of the Rainforest.
Edition Chimaira, Frankfurt, 256 pp.

Tilbury C.R., Tolley K.A. & Branch W.R. (2006)
A review of the systematics of the genus Bradypodion (Sauria: Chamaeleonidae), with the description of two new genera.
Zootaxa 1363, 23–38

Tolley, Krystal A.; Colin R. Tilbury, William R. Branch and Conrad A. Matthee (2004)
Phylogenetics of the southern African dwarf chameleons, Bradypodion (Squamata: Chamaeleonidae).
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 30 (2): 354-365

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