The smallest chameleon in the world has a length of 3 cm

Everyone knows the ability of chameleons change their color, in fact, thanks to this ability, these lizards are so called after the mythical hero who was known for being able to change its appearance. Because of this specific feature of chameleons difficult to notice t. To. Despite the fact that they change their appearance with the purpose of communicating with the representatives of its kind, not mimicry, however, their color often coincides with the ambient background environment and therefore often found previously unknown species of these mysterious fauna.

Since 2010 biologists had discovered a new species of chameleons, whose representatives now considered the smallest in the world. The size of these members of the family of lizards perhaps that can be compared with the size of the insects: they are so small. Special detection chameleon species differ presence flake horn and bluish points on the extremities. According to scientists, these chameleons were not previously known, since their appearance on the verge of extinction. It is expected that today the world has no more than one hundred individuals of a given species.

The thing is that the smallest chameleon in the world mostly live in the tropical forests of Tanzania, which in recent decades has actively been subjected to cutting. Thus, the destruction of a familiar environment, and resulted in the killing of the species of chameleons. Scientists plan to achieve a legislative decision to ban the felling of tropical forests of Tanzania.

Previously, the smallest chameleon was regarded as a chameleon, which was discovered in Madagascar British wildlife photographer. While the majority of chameleons have a body length of about 30 centimeters (the length of the largest reaches 50-60 centimeters), and the length of the body, even the youngest members of this family of lizards - not less than 3 centimeters, length of chameleon found British photographer from nose to tail tip not exceeds 2, 5 centimeters in size that can be correlated with the length of normal human nail.

Chameleons often live in mainland Africa and Madagascar. By the way, the island of Madagascar is considered a kind of historical homeland of lizards multifaceted: it is assumed that the first chameleon few thousand years ago there were just here, besides many species occurred precisely in this area, and only then were spread to other corners of the planet.

It should be noted another surprising fact, despite the fact that the scientists believe that the very first appeared chameleons in Madagascar, the remains of the ancient found the chameleon, whose age is estimated at 26 million years old, it has been found in Europe. Yet, according to scientists, the chameleon blue planet inhabited much earlier - more than 100 million years ago - and refer to the fact that the remains of the oldest representatives of the lizard family simply could not survive to the present day, or have not yet been found.