If you’re interested in chameleons for sale, you may be curious about how they change color. Contrary to popular belief, these changes are not due to pigments, but rather to structural changes within skin cells. Specifically, chameleons have two layers of light-reflecting cells in their skin, each containing nanoscopic crystals of the purine guanine.
As a chameleon shifts the orientation of these crystals in its skin, it can generate impressive changes in color, from greens to yellows, blues to whites, and reds to brighter hues. Researchers have discovered that these colors are created without pigments, through the interaction of photons and the guanine nanocrystals in the chameleon’s skin.
Michel Milinkovitch, professor of genetics and evolution at the University of Geneva, and his colleagues have demonstrated the presence of these two layers of cells in all chameleons studied so far. It’s believed that the ancestor of all chameleons had color-changing abilities, and for those species that have lost this ability, the guanine lattice in their skin may be less regular or flexible.
So, if you’re looking to buy panther chameleons for sale or any other type of chameleon, know that their color-changing abilities are due to an intricate interplay of light and nanocrystals, and not pigments.