Wildly Weird Introduction: Creepy, crawly, slimy, or "gross", many animals have special characteristics or behaviors that never fail to amaze us! The natural world is full of animal and plant diversity; some pretty, some ugly, but all play a vital role in the health of our planet. Here we will explore some of the stranger facts of life, and meet some of nature's unsung heroes. Wildly Weird Creature Feature: Chameleons Of the many lizards in the world, the chameleon is certainly one of the strangest. Famous for its ability to change color seemingly at will, chameleons are captivatingly weird! Belonging to the family Chamelonidae, which means "little lion", 59 of the worlds 100+ species of chameleon live only on the island of Madagascar, with new species discovered even today. So, what makes these lizards so special? Well, how about independantly moving eyes (that's right, they can move each eye in different directions, at the same time...that gives me a headache just thinking about it!), the abiltiy to change their skin color to blend in to their surroundings, and supersonic, ultra-sticky strong tongues that they can shoot out up to three times their own body length! But wait, there's more! Chameleons also have prehensile tails, which means they can use it to grip onto branches for better stability while climbing. Chameleons are mostly arboreal, which means they live most of their lives in trees and don't like to spend much time on the ground, where they could be eaten by a passing predetor. These guys are safest hidden among the branches, perfectly blending into the surrounding foilage. Color is their specialty, and chameleons can change from green to brown, blue, yellow, red, black, white or a mixture of each! Chameleon Characteristics Chameleons come in many different shapes and sizes. Some are so small they can perch comfortably on the tip of your pinkie! Some have dramatic horns on their heads, while others sport a smooth profile. All are fascinating! Bug-eaters by nature, chameleons rely on camouflage and stealth to slowly--very slowly--creep up on an unsuspecting bug and, WHAM! Catch it with their sticky tongues. Using high-speed video and x-ray film, two Dutch biologists calculated that the chameleon's tongue shoots out of its mouth at more than 26 body lengths per second; that's the equivalent of 13.4 miles (21.6 kilometers) an hour! Talk about fast food...It can snag prey located more than one and a half body lengths away. Toes and Tails We already mentioned the chameleon's prehensile tail, but another interesting chameleon characteristic are its feet. Chameleons are zygodactyl, which means that each foot has toes grouped in opposition to each other. This gives them a much stronger grip while climbing, and great traction while hauling in a bug on the end of that looooong tongue. Each toe is tipped with a curved claw, also good for gripping and climbing. Skin Deep Back to that color changing talent--So how do they do it? Chameleons have several kinds of pigment located with different cells in their skin. The pigment that is most responsible for most color changes is melanin. This is a dark substance contained in cells known as melanophores. When melanin particles are concentrated in one place inside the melenophores, the bright yellow and blue pigments in other skin cells can be seen. Then, a chameleon's skin usually looks green. When the dark melanin spreads out within the melanophores, it covers up some of the other pigment cells. This causes the skin to appear black. Other movements can create stripes and spots of color! Many things inspire a chameleon to change color. When a chameleon is nervous, they will try to do anything to virtually dissappear into their surroundings. This comes in very handy when a snake or other predator wanders by. Temperature change can also cause a chameleon to change color, and color is also a means of communication. A male chameleon may display and change color to attract a female's attention, or to warn another male to stay away. You could say that chameleons are nature's billboards, advertising their mood and message with their skin! Like many other reptiles, chameleons also shed their skin. As a chameleon grows, its skin does not, so they shed it when it gets too tight. In fact, the shed skin is a good source of protien, so quite often a chameleon will eat its old skin. YUMMY! More Wildly Weird Facts: I've been slimed! The slime trail that snails leave behind actually acts like a magic carpet for the snail, allowing it to glide easily over rough ground, while also protecting its soft "foot". Snail slime is so gooey and thick that a snail can glide along a razor's edge without getting cut! Hey pea-brain! An ostrich is one of the world's largest land animals, yet its brain is smaller than its eye! Guess what? Many animals have been observed snoring occasionally, including dogs, cats, cows, oxen, sheep, buffaloes, elephants, camels, lions, leopards, tigers, gorillas, chimpanzees, horses, mules, zebras, elands, and--oh yeah--humans! Brainiacs beware! Besides humans, the ten most intelligent animals are: chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, baboons, gibbons, monkeys (many species, especially macaques), smaller toothed whales (especially killer whales or Orcas), dolphins, elephants, and pigs. Birds appear to have a well-developed color sense, and are believed to have "color vision". Most mammals are color blind, with apes and monkeys having the ability to tell colors apart. Dogs and cats seem to be colorblind and only see in shades of black, white and gray. The longest recorded; sustained flight of a chicken was 13 seconds. Emus and kangaroos can't walk backward! Shocking, but true: On average, an electric eel can produce 350 to 550 volts of electricity. The shock consists of four to eight separate charges, which last two-to three-thousandths of a second each. These shocks, used as a defense mechanism, can be repeated up to 150 times per hour without any visible fatigue to the eel. The most powerful electric eel is found in the rivers of Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, and Peru, and produces a shock of 400-650 volts! Creepy, Crawly Facts: Crowd control There are anywhere from 750,000 to over one million species of insects recognized at this time. Some experts argue that this represents less than half of the number of insects (known and unknown) in the world! About 7,000 new species of insects are described each year, but unknown numbers are lost every year due to habitat destruction, mainly in tropical forests. A spider's silk is stronger than steel! Well known for its strength and elasticity, the strongest spider's silk has tensile strength that is five times greater than that of steel of equivalent weight. The average spider can weave a web in 30 to 60 minutes. The largest aerial webs are spun by tropical orb weavers and can measure up to 18 3/4 feet in circumference. There are about 32,000 species of spiders! Some large spiders lay over 2,000 eggs in a single egg sac and some carry their new babies on their backs, while other newly hatched spiders will excrete a single, long strand of silk while lifting their abdomens in the air. The silk strand acts like a kite, catching air currents, which lift the baby spider into the air. This method of spider movement is called "ballooning". Cockroaches have been around for about 280 million years, can regenerate their appendages (wings, limbs and antennae), and have been known to survive for extended periods of time without their heads! Not only do they love to eat human food, but they also enjoy bookbindings, ink, whitewash, and generally grossing us humans out! Who Am I? Can you figure out what animal this is? Unscramble the letters below to find out. Hint--I have a "biting" personality! Don't peek, the answer is at the bottom of the page. N G I P A P S N R T L T U E Baby Names: Here are some interesting names for baby animals: frog - polliwog or tadpole; ants - antlings; eels - fry or elver; fly - grub or maggot; sharks - cub; turtle - chicken; and oyster - spat. Aren't baby names cute?? Come back soon--more weird facts are on the way! ***Who am I? I am a Florida snapping turtle!

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