The Amazing Design of Chameleons

While visiting Ruby Slippers to discuss the upcoming nuptials of our mutual friends Stormie Waters and Roland Meadows, I was distracted by her pet chameleon. It was a real one, not an anole sometimes sold as a chameleon. This one was fully grown.

It was feeding time, which is interesting. Ruby puts worms and crickets into the cage every other day, and I was there at the right moment. She opened the top and dropped them in. "Liz" was the name of the female lizard, and I saw an eye move and focus on lunch.

Panther chameleon, Wikimedia Commons / Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0)

"Liz is interested. Watch and see if she —" A blur of motion and I was surprised at how fast the lizard zapped up a cricket. "There you go," said Ruby. "I'm amazed at how they were designed to have such specialized vision and that it works with precision shooting of that sticky tongue. There's also a suction cup kind of thing on there."

"Yes, clearly some specified complexity", I replied. "The Creator puts several things in place for his creation to survive and thrive."

Learning and seeing things like this is fun.

"I know that it's a myth that chameleons simply blend in with their surroundings."

She nodded. "Colors are complicated in the way they show and give ideas about their moods. Some chameleons get on the prod and the colors show it. Best to leave those alone, as some will bite a person. Others hide." The skin has layers, and pigments show depending on conditions and emotional states. They can blend with their surroundings somewhat, but not in a way portrayed in cartoons.

Darwin's disciples cannot do anything better than say, "It evolved" while providing no evidence. It is a reasonable conclusion based on observed evidence of what was mentioned in this story (facts are real, not most characters) and other details that chameleons are the result of the Master Designer's work.

The chameleon (the name of which means ‘ground lion’ in Greek) is a lizard with many remarkable features. About 90 species have been identified, and 59 of them live in Madagascar. However, there are only two genera, which probably means that there were originally only one or two created kinds, which now have many varieties.

They live mostly in trees and eat mainly insects, although large chameleons can eat birds. Most chameleons grow to 17–25 cm (7–10 inches) long, while the longest can reach 60 cm (2 ft). Chameleons are sometimes insulted as ‘the most primitive group of lizards’, but they have many unique design features.

To read the rest of this interesting article, see "A coat of many colours."