Chameleon Camouflage Crystals: Mysterious Mechanism Revealed

So how does it work? Physicists and biologists at the University of Geneva teamed up to study the crystals in detail, finding that they primarily shift in accordance with how taught or relaxed a chameleon's skin is. This achieves a mirror that will reflect more or less of the light spectrum at one time.

"When the chameleon is clam (loose skin), the [crystals] are organized into a dense network and reflect the blue wavelengths. In contrast, when excited, it lessens its lattice of nanocrystals, which allows the reflection of other colors such as yellows or reds," Jérémie Teyssier and biologist Suzanne Saenko, co-first authors of the study, explained in a statement.

These shifts can only do so much on their own, but it's very likely that they make up for the failings of pigmentation in nature. Researchers have long known that colors like blue and violet, for instance, are rarely expressed by pigment. With the crystals pulling off this side of the task, cells of shifting pigments can take care of the rest, helping craft a rainbow of hues more complex than even humans can see.

What's more, Michel Milinkovitch, the senior researcher on the team, added that these crystals are even used as a "heat shield" at the deeper layers of a chameleon's skin.

"These cells, which contain larger and less ordered crystals, reflect a substantial proportion of the infrared wavelengths," he explained.

This could help hide what little body heat these cold-blooded reptiles have or help maintain a healthy body temperature in sweltering environments.

Still, how these shifts are done to exactly match a chameleon's surroundings or adapt to certain temperatures remains a mystery. That leaves frustrated scientists with a lot left to figure out if they ever hope to make the cloaking tech of science fiction a reality.

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