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In striking unexampled footage , a chamaeleon flare in stunning colors while in the throes of death . Using time - relapse photography , researcher captured the colorful last few hr of the reptile ’s short life — and the remarkable changes that take place in that time .
" In her last moment , her skin erupts with coloring material , as if verbalise her last words , " narrator Bumper Robinson state in the time .
The Labord’s chameleon (Furcifer labordi), from Madagascar, was observed in the final moments of her short life.
The Labord ’s chameleon ( Furcifer labordi ) was film in the Kirindy Forest in western Madagascar . This metal money has one of theshortest known life couplet of any four - legged craniate , living just four to five months after hatching ; they spend longer develop inside an orchis ( around eight to nine months ) than they do outside it .
In the novel PBS serial publication " Big Little Journeys , " filmmakers follow the female Labord ’s Chamaeleon as she lay her eggs and covered them with grit to protect them from the effects of the come near teetotal season .
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The Labord’s chameleon (Furcifer labordi), from Madagascar, was observed in the final moments of her short life.
" The females put all their push into producing bollock that need to get through the long drought while underground , " serial publication manufacturer Valeria Fabbri - Kennedy and scientistChris Raxworthy , a herpetologist at the American Museum of Natural History , distinguish Live Science in an email . " They die within just a few hours of having laid them , as they have few resources get out . "
The team had hoped to charm the full life cycle of this little - screw species — and make one person " had slowed and seemed to be fade , " they state . They set up a clip - lapse camera , and when they returned two hours later , they detect the chamaeleon drained .
" On reviewing the footage , we were amazed and moved by the colorful spectacle they had film — something that the scientist have never find in the wild before , " Fabbri - Kennedy and Raxworthy said .
Chameleons ' skin change vividness by expanding and contracting peculiar cells that contain nanocrystals — a unconscious process that alters how they reflect light . In the cartridge clip , the chamaeleon ’s cutis twinkles and changes color like a pyrotechnic display .
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" During destruction , nervous signals continue to transmit and to change the shape of the skin cells , produce the chaotic technicolor normal that were bewitch , " Fabbri - Kennedy and Raxworthy said .
This extreme endurance strategy of program death — in which females conk after lay nut — is see in many other species , including devilfish and moth .
Among Labord ’s chameleons , the males also fail before the dry time of year arrives , having expended all their resources fighting for the opportunity to reproduce . This signify that for two - thirds of the year , the entire population exists in eggs buried underground . " adult have not evolved to survive it [ the dry season ] , " Fabbri - Kennedy and Raxworthy said .
