Cape dwarf chameleons are ambush predators

Cape dwarf chameleons are ambush predators

by Alex Negro Beobachtungen Science

For a long time, only two types of foraging behaviour were distinguished: active foragers and sit-and-wait or ambush foragers. Many years ago, two publications classified chameleons as ‘cruise foragers’, i.e. hunters that move slowly through the bushes, stop to feed and then move on. A study from South Africa is now investigating whether this is true and whether other factors contribute to movement. In order to evaluate the mode of foraging, one would actually have to ‘factor out’ movement for regulating body temperature, evading predators or opponents, searching for females or mate guarding.

To this end, 38 tagged (12 of them radio-tagged) Bradypodion pumilum were tracked over 10 days in April and 10 days in February. The chameleons live in Brümmer Park in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape province. They were divided into 17 male, 19 female and 2 indeterminate Bradypodion pumilum. The animals were located every evening and every morning on the specified days using telemetry and the naked eye. Each chameleon was observed for 60 to 180 minutes at a time, with two to four observers using binoculars from a distance of 5 to 10 metres from the chameleon being observed. The researchers recorded movements and stationary behaviour and assigned the corresponding motivation to each movement, noting food intake and number of shots.

A total of 171 hours of observation time was accumulated. Bradypodion pumilum spent most of the day (over 75%) stationary on their branches in Brümmer Park. In the morning, over 80% of them were sitting around, with almost half of this time spent sunbathing, presumably to warm up, and the other half spent stationary in shady vegetation. During the observation period, 26 Bradypodion pumilum fed a total of 110 times. They ate significantly more often (over 80%) when they were not moving. A strong factor for movement was interaction with conspecifics – during the observations, one male was even chased away by a female, causing it to fall from the tree.

The authors conclude from their study that Bradypodion pumilum is more likely to be a ambush hunter.

A multi-index approach to assessing foraging mode: a case study using chameleons
Wade K. Stanton-Jones, Krystal A. Tolley, Jody M. Barends, Graham J. Alexander
Current Zoology, 2025, zoaf065
DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoaf065
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Photo: Bradypodion pumilum tagged with a transmitter from the study mentioned above

Genome of South African dwarf chameleons decoded

Genome of South African dwarf chameleons decoded

by Alex Negro Science

After a reference genome for the panther chameleon (Furcifer pardalis) was recently published for the first time in China, scientists from South Africa have now followed with the genome of two dwarf chameleon species.

For the analyses, a male Bradypodion pumilum from Cape Town and a male Bradypodion ventrale from an introduced population in Johannesburg were taken. Muscle and liver tissue was used for long sequencing (HiC). The genome size of Bradypodion pumilum is 2.43 gigabase pairs (Gb), that of Bradypodion ventrale 2.40 Gb. The BUSCO analysis demonstrated a high completeness with about 97% of all existing coding genes in vertebrates. Furthermore, the current publication confirms the six macrochromosomes already found from the karyotype in Bradypodion thamnobates 2017. Various comparisons with Anolis sagrei were made. It remains open which chromosomes in Bradypodion are sex chromosomes.

The genomes can be viewed in the NCBI BioProject under the number PRJNA9861319 and under the BioSample numbers SAMN35825189 and SAMN35825190 respectively.

De novo whole genome assemblies for two Southern African Dwarf Chameleons (Bradypodion, Chamaeleonidae)
Jody M. Taft, Krystal A. Tolley, Graham J. Alexander, Anthony J. Geneva
Genome Biology and Evolution 15 (10), 2023, pp. 1-8
DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evad182

Species diversification in chameleons

Species diversification in chameleons

by Alex Negro Science

From earlier studies, we know that the first chameleons evolved in the late Cretaceous, about 90 million years ago, on mainland of Africa. Around the border between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, about 65 million years ago, different species began to evolve. It is still unclear today which factors contributed to the diversity of species. Two researchers from Swansea University in Wales have now used various computational models of phylogenetics to investigate what might have influenced diversification (the splitting of chameleons into many different species).

First, they studied the diversification of chameleon species in Madagascar. In terms of evolutionary history, there are two points in time when chameleons apparently spread across the sea from mainland Africa to Madagascar. One is about 65 million years in the past, the other 45 million years. You could now think that the climatically extremely different habitats in Madagascar could have driven the evolution of the species very quickly after the spread across the sea. To the surprise of the researchers, however, no evidence of this was found. The species richness of chameleons on Madagascar must therefore come from the fact that chameleons spread there very early and thus simply had much more time to develop into different species than elsewhere.

Furthermore, the researchers investigated whether switching between two ecomorphs – from ground-dwelling stub-tailed chameleons to tree-dwelling chameleons with longer tails – had an impact on species diversity. Rather surprisingly, this did not seem to be the case. The evolution to tree-dwellers with longer tails occurred relatively early on one or two occasions. No evidence could be found that different ecomorphs accelerated diversification. Instead, speciation rates were found to slow down progressively over the last 60 million years. Only a very early dispersal event of the genus Bradypodion in South Africa around 10 million years ago was accompanied by a two- to fourfold diversification rate.

As a third focus of the study, the researchers examined the genus Bradypodion. During the climate change in the Miocene around 10 million years ago, South Africa changed a lot. Forests disappeared, leaving behind isolated forest habitats and, in between, savannahs, some of which are now so-called hot spots of biodiversity. Two of them, the Cape Floristic Region at the southwestern tip of South Africa and Maputuland-Pondoland-Albany on the east coast of South Africa, are home to a particularly large number of Bradypodion species. Each species is limited to a geographically very clearly defined area. The researchers, therefore, suspect that Bradypodion species have actually evolved faster under the influence of habitat change. It should be noted that the diversification rate of the genus Bradypodion is probably rather underestimated, as there are still many hidden species to be assumed.

Diversification dynamics of chameleons (Chamaeleonidae)
Stephen Giles, Kevin Arbuckle
Journal of Zoology, 2022
DOI: 10.1111/jzo.13019

Preferred perches in Bradypodion pumilum

Preferred perches in Bradypodion pumilum

by Alex Negro Science

It has long been known that most chameleon species move around on branches. However, research into how and which branches they prefer to use has so far been based mainly on nocturnal observations. At night, chameleons are easier to find in bushes and trees because they usually sleep on the ends of branches and are easy to spot with a torch. However, less is known about the use of perches during the chameleons’ active time, namely during the day. The herpetologist Kristal A. Tolley from the Kirstenbosch Research Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, has now conducted a study to find out which perch sizes Bradypodion pumilum prefers at night and during the day.

It is known from other tree-dwelling reptiles that they tend to seek out thinner perches at night, but use different perch sizes during the day. The result of the study was all the more surprising: the branches used by Bradypodion pumilum did not differ in diameter or variety during the day and night. An astonishingly high range of branches was used overall. The only correlation found was with body size, which seems logical in principle: The larger the chameleon, the thicker the perches used.


Is it like night and day? Nocturnal versus diurnal perch use by dwarf chameleons (Bradypodion pumilum)
Krystal A. Tolley
African Journal of Herpetology
DOI: 10.1080/21564574.2022.2098392

Factors in the geographical dispersal of chameleons

Factors in the geographical dispersal of chameleons

by Alex Negro Science

For a long time, people have been trying to find out how and why chameleons have spread across the African continent, to islands and as far as Europe and Asia. French scientists, in collaboration with international colleagues, have now used phylogenetics and various computational models to investigate how the factors of body size, coastal habitat and extreme lifestyles may have affected the distribution of different chameleon species. The study examined 181 species divided into nine main biogeographical regions: North Africa and Arabia, Central Africa, Southeast Africa, Southwest Africa, India, Socotra, Madagascar, Comoros and Seychelles.

Chameleon species that occurred more than 10 km from the sea historically spread significantly less than the 74 coastal chameleon species. A similar phenomenon is known from skinks and crocodiles. Dispersal probably took place mainly along the coasts, mostly on the same continent and only rarely across the water to other continents or islands.

The size of the different chameleons also seems to have influenced their dispersal throughout history: Large chameleons spread further and more frequently than small chameleons. This could be related to the fact that larger chameleons have a lower metabolic rate – so they need less energy overall relative to smaller competitors. In addition, larger chameleons lay clutches with significantly more eggs, which simply gives them an advantage in numbers.

A somewhat unexpected result came from the study of different life cycles. One would initially assume that short life cycles are associated with faster dispersal. In fact, the calculations showed that especially chameleon species with extreme life cycles spread further. Thus, those that reproduced particularly slowly or particularly quickly were historically more successful among chameleons than the species “in the middle”. In this regard, the authors consider whether particularly slow life cycles with late sexual maturity and long gestation might be more successful on the same continent, while faster reproductive strategies with large clutches are more favourable for dispersal across the sea to islands and other continents. In line with this, Furcifer polleni and Furcifer cephalolepis in Comoros and Chamaeleo zeylanicus in India, all three examples of aquatic dispersal, have a very fast life cycle.

The 34 chameleon species with the combination of living close to the coast, large size and extreme life cycle had a 98% higher dispersal rate than species without these characteristics.  All in all, this is certainly a very theoretical study, but it nevertheless provides exciting insights into the historical distribution and dispersal of chameleons.

Chameleon biogeographic dispersal is associated with extreme life history strategies
Sarah-Sophie Weil, Laurie Gallien, Sébastien Lavergne, Luca Börger, Gabriel W. Hassler, Michaël P.J. Nicolaï & William L. Allen
Ecography
DOI: 10.1111/ecog.06323