Ciekawostka: A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body

Evidence: 84 • authority: 72

Rieppeleon brevicaudatus, commonly known as the bearded leaf chameleon or bearded pygmy chameleon, is a chameleon originating from the eastern Usambara and Uluguru Mountains in northeastern Tanzania and Kenya. It is easily distinguished from others in the Rieppeleon genus by the presence of a "beard" below the mouth, consisting of a few raised scales. At a full grown length of only 3 in (8 cm), it is marked by somewhat drab coloring in comparison to other chameleons, usually assuming a brown or tan coloring. It is quite capable of changing its coloration, though, often taking on a shade to blend into the background and becoming darker when under stress. It is also capable of compressing its…

Evidence: 67 • authority: 92

Feats of supercontractile strength: functional convergence of supercontracting muscle properties among hyoid musculature in chameleons.. The structure of sarcomeres imposes limits to the capacity of striated muscle to change length and produce force, with z-disc and myosin filament interactions constraining shortening. Conversely, supercontracting muscles, hitherto only known among vertebrates in the tongue retractor muscle (m. hyoglossus) of chameleons, have perforated z-discs that allow myosin filaments to extend through them into adjacent sarcomeres, permitting continued shortening and force development. Additional hyolingual muscles in chameleons undergo extreme length changes during fe…

Evidence: 67 • authority: 92

A new twist in the evolution of chameleons uncovers an extremely specialized optic nerve morphology.. Chameleons are unique among lizards for their exceptional suite of anatomical modifications which has allowed them to adapt to and diversify in arboreal environments. Specializations shared by members of this lineage include a trunk with a reduced number of presacral vertebrae, a body that can be mediolaterally compressed or expanded, reduced flexibility in the trunk and neck, grasping hands and feet, a prehensile and non-autotomizing tail, highly developed and independently movable eyes, and a ballistic tongue. Here we use contrast enhanced computed tomography to describe the arrangement o…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 80

Life & evolution: Meeting notes: Chameleon tongue power underestimated

Evidence: 51 • authority: 80

Manipulators inspired by the tongue of the chameleon

Evidence: 51 • authority: 80

Artificial chameleon tongue has bug-catching licked

Evidence: 51 • authority: 80

Towards a Manipulator Mimicking the Tongue of the Chameleon

Evidence: 51 • authority: 72

Currently there are about 40 extant families of Lacertilia. These vary considerably, e.g. in shades, colours, and sizes. For example, the largest representative among Geckos, the New Caledonian giant gecko (Rhacodactylus leachianus), has a length of up to 36 cm (14 in), while the largest species in the family Varanidae, Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), has a length up to 3 metres (10 ft), and a body mass of 70 kg (154 lbs).

Evidence: 51 • authority: 92

Optimized deep learning for Indian Classical Dance Classification a novel application based on a refined version of chameleon swarm algorithm.. Indian Classical Dance (ICD) is a cultural art form much older than history, where the body movements convey emotions, spiritual meanings, or narrative meanings. Automated classification of ICD styles from visual data presents great challenges because of subtle inter-class variations, intra-class variations, and the complexity of human pose representation. Deep learning models have been applied to this kind of work, but the performance is usually limited due to suboptimal parameter tuning. Therefore, this work introduces a new approach to optimize D…

Evidence: — • authority: 35