<\/p>\n
Sometimes science starts small: last year, someone posted a photo of a Calumma globifer<\/em> with a mosquito sitting on it on the online platform iNaturalist. Right there you could see a black discoloration of the scales. I wonder if there was a connection?<\/p>\n A handful of curious people searched for more photos of mosquitoes on chameleons and found what they were looking for: On Facebook there were some of Veiled chameleons, on iNaturalist more of Furcifer minor<\/em> and Furcifer nicosiai<\/em>. However, there were also six observations of mosquitoes on chameleons that did not appear to have black spots.<\/p>\n To test the connection, scientists in Madagascar placed two Furcifer oustaleti and four carpet chameleons alone in an enclosure with 25 female Asian tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus<\/em>), which had not been fed for 24 hours beforehand. At the same time, all six chameleons were pricked in the skin with a needle to test whether this “trauma” would also trigger a color change in the skin. The results were surprising: in the four Furcifer lateralis<\/em>, numerous black skin discolorations developed after mosquito bites, in the two Furcifer outaleti<\/em> not a single one. The punctures with the needle remained without consequences in all six.<\/p>\n The authors of the recently published article propose three possible theories as to how the color change in the chameleon’s skin could come about: The mosquito saliva could contain a type of local anesthetic, nitric oxide or other proteins that cause the skin’s melanophores to become exclusively visible. Further research in this field would certainly be exciting!<\/p>\n Mosqito bite-induced color change in chameleon skin<\/strong> Sometimes science starts small: last year, someone posted a photo of a Calumma globifer with a mosquito sitting on it on the online platform iNaturalist. Right there you could see a black discoloration of the scales. I wonder if there was a connection? A handful of curious people searched for more photos of mosquitoes on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[217,45],"tags":[548,553,263,547,117,554,552,299,48,550,551,549],"class_list":["post-5308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tiermedizin","category-wissenschaft","tag-aedes-albopictus","tag-calumma-globifer","tag-chamaeleo-calyptratus","tag-culex","tag-furcifer-lateralis","tag-furcifer-minor","tag-furcifer-nicosiai","tag-furcifer-oustaleti","tag-madagaskar","tag-stechmuecke","tag-stechmuecken","tag-tigermuecke"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nPablo Garcia, Raul E. Diaz Junior, Christopher V. Anderson, Tovo M. Andrianjafy, Len de Beer, Devin A. Edmonds, Ryan M. Carney
\nHerpetological Review 54(3), 2023, pp.353-358<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"