The Nano-Science of Chameleon Color

Chameleons don’t just pick a color. They can shift shades fast because their skin is

basically a living nano-display. First wow fact: most of the time,

they’re not trying to match the background. Color is mainly for communication and

temperature control. Their skin has layers of special cells—think of it like stacked filters.

Some layers use pigments—cells called chromatophores. But the rapid, precise color flip magic comes from

iridophores—cells packed with tiny reflective crystals. Those crystals are made of guanine—yes, the same base

that’s in DNA, just used here like mirrors. Here’s the mechanism: change the spacing

between crystals… and you change which color of light gets reflected. Tight spacing reflects