Chameleons use color changes as a 'billboard' announcing intentions

PHOENIX, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Chameleons use their distinctive talent for changing colors to create "billboards" to communicate their intentions toward others, U.S. researchers say.

Arizona State University researchers report they've found these color changes convey different types of information during important social interactions.

When male chameleons challenge each other for territory or a female, their coloring becomes brighter and much more intense, they said, and males that display brighter stripes are more likely to aggressively approach their opponent, while those that achieve brighter head colors are more likely to win fights.

"By using bright color signals and drastically changing their physical appearance, the chameleons' bodies become almost like a billboard -- the winner of a fight is often decided before they actually make physical contact," Russell Ligon, a doctoral candidate in the university's School of Life Sciences said.

"The winner is the one that causes its opponent to retreat. While sometimes they do engage in physical combat, these contests are very short -- five to 15 seconds. More often than not, their color displays end the contest before they even get started."

There are approximately 160 species of chameleons in the world, with many of them at risk from rapid destruction of their habitats, the researchers said.