Chameleons use their bulbous eyes to switch from stereo to mono vision and catch prey with pinpoint precision
- Chameleon's eyes can move independently but its brain can coordinate its eye movements, enabling it to focus on prey
- Haifa University team used virtual insect projected on a wall to test its eyes
- Found keeps one eye on the target and adjusts the other one to match the first’s gaze, before ‘firing’ its tongue, switching from stereo to mono vision
Scientists think a chameleon’s brain can coordinate its eyes to help them focus on prey, even though they move independently (stock image)
The chameleon’s eyes can move independently, giving the scaly predator two views of the world at once.
But it’s been unclear whether the creature’s brain processes information from each eye separately or together, until now.
Scientists think a chameleon’s brain can coordinate its eyes to help them focus on prey, even though they move independently.
This allows the animal to flick from stereo to mono vision when hunting.
A team led by Hadas Ketter Katz from the University of Haifa in Israel, investigated the creature’s unusual eyesight by baiting colour-changing lizards with computerised prey projected onto a wall in front of them, New Scientist reported.
‘When prey (an insect) is detected, the chameleon's eyes converge to view it binocularly and "lock" in their sockets so that subsequent visual tracking is by head movements,’ the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, says.
The researchers observed that the lizards fix their eyes on a pixelated bug and lock their tongue into the firing position before shooting it out and hitting the target.
A chameleon actually keeps one eye on the target and adjusts the other one to match the first’s gaze, switching from stereo to mono vision, before ‘firing’ its tongue.
This suggests the chameleon’s brain can coordinate its eyes to make one follow the other and help it decide exactly what to focus on.
When chameleons were presented with two small targets moving in opposite directions, they performed the same procedure, even though their eyes moved in different directions.
‘To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of such a capacity,’ the researchers write.
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A chameleon actually keeps one eye on a target such as an insect and adjusts the other one to match the first’s gaze, before ‘firing’ its tongue (stock image) switching from stereo to mono vision
‘…We suggest that in chameleons, eye movements are not simply independent.’
The study is of particular interest because eye movements in cold-blooded animals and birds are often independent, using optic nerves that are in some ways not as developed as in mammals.
The chameleon’s eyes can move independently, giving the scaly predator two views of the world at once. Until now, experts weren't sure whether the creature’s brain processes information from each eye separately or together
HOW DO CHAMELEONS CHANGE COLOUR?
Swiss researchers revealed in March that chameleons use futuristic nanotechnology more advanced than anything humans possess to carry out their extraordinary colour changes.
The reptiles are capable of rearranging crystals inside specialised skin cells to switch hues in order to attract a potential mate or scare off a rival.
The process involves the active tuning of a lattice of microscopic crystals in skin cells called iridophores.
Swiss researchers have revealed that chameleons appear to be capable of rearranging crystals inside specialised skin cells to switch hues in order to attract a potential mate or scare off a rival. A stock image of a colourful panther chameleon is shown
Not only do the crystals allow the lizard to shift rapidly from efficient camouflage to spectacular mating displays, they also protect it from overheating.
It was previously thought that coloured pigments were gathered and dispersed inside different cells.
Like some other reptiles, chameleons display a wide range of colours produced not by pigments but ‘optical interference’ between different wavelengths of reflected light from tiny crystals, the researchers claim.
The crystals are arranged in layers within the iridophores.
In studies of the panther chameleon, which comes from Madagascar, scientists found that the creature actively controls the way its iridophore crystals generate colour.
It can turn from a camouflaged green to a bright yellow to attract a potential mate, for example.
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