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Species

Namaqua Chameleon

Species

Macken Murphy

Nature, Social Sciences, Science

4.8606 Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2018

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How do chameleons change color? How do chameleons grab prey with their tongue? Why do black shirts get hot in the sun? Was the movie "Mad Max" a heavy metal music video, or an act of war against Mother Earth?

Find out on this short but spectacular episode of Species.

Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11PPRq1kXFEFeyAKBLKyfabpGEpLbObFeQSXLtqEcZMo/edit?usp=sharing

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Do you like wearing black shirts on hot days?

0:05.7

If you do, you are probably a masochist.

0:08.9

Or a goth.

0:10.4

Or you just look so good in a black shirt that not even the sun is able to stop your stylishness.

0:15.8

It doesn't matter to me. Do your thing. You look great.

0:19.0

The rest of us hate wearing black shirts on hot days,

0:23.1

because as you probably already know, dark colored clothing makes you overheat. Since this is

0:30.7

partially a science podcast, it would be off-brand not to explain the reason for this. So here's the

0:37.2

quick version. Darker colors look

0:40.5

darker because they absorb more light, and lighter colors look lighter because they reflect more

0:48.5

light. There are other factors at work, of course, material and form are important, but darkness is certainly a part of it.

0:56.7

The process of absorbing light involves absorbing the energy in light, and when that energy is absorbed,

1:05.7

it gets converted into another form of energy, usually heat. So, the light bounces right off your white t-shirt,

1:14.8

but your black t-shirt takes that light and changes it into heat. And if it's a hot day already,

1:23.5

you will change into a different outfit. Today we are going to talk about an animal who doesn't need to change outfits.

1:33.9

The Namakwa chameleon.

1:36.6

Camelio namaquensis.

1:40.1

I'm Mackin. This is species.

1:46.3

Hey, welcome to the show. You'll have to excuse the birds in the background during the main

1:50.8

recording today. I'm recording in a new location and they want to participate. In any other

1:56.5

podcast, that would be inappropriate, but this is a podcast about animals. And if some members of the

2:02.0

avian delegation want to be guests, well, who am I to object? This is our first show about a lizard

...

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