In Otter News: St. Pierre the Panther Chameleon

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St. Pierre the Panther Chameleon is a relatively new resident of The Lake Superior Zoo. At the time of filming, he was about 7 to 8 weeks old.

Males of these species have a very bright color palette. These animals change color, but only more or less of the color they are.

They are known for this alongside their tongues. They are able to stretch their tongues a long distance, about two and half times the length of their body.

Keeper Daniel Johnson explains, “The tongue is able to do that is a couple of reasons. So they have a special bone under the jaw that’s very highly modified and attached to that bone and extension muscle. So they use this muscle to contract it and that allows the tongue to shoot out very rapidly.”

Each eye on a chameleon is completely independent of the other, meaning they see two different images at the same time.