Chameleon Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Chameleon trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Chameleons are stranger than the cartoon version. Their colour change is driven by nanocrystals in the skin rather than pigment, they use it mostly to talk to each other and to warm up rather than to hide, their tongues launch at accelerations above 41 g, and their eyes work independently until the moment they lock on to prey. This quiz covers all of that, plus where the roughly 200 species actually live, why half of them are on Madagascar, and how a nano-chameleon 22 millimetres long came to be a contender for the world's smallest reptile. Easy questions ask which continent chameleons come from and what they mostly eat; the harder ones want the Greek roots of the name, the number of days a Parson's chameleon egg takes to hatch, the frequency range chameleons can hear, and which species Hamlet was talking about when he said he ate the air. Pet keepers will recognise the veiled, panther and Jackson's chameleons that fill out the middle of the set. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the chameleon family and its best-known species, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Our Lizards and Reptiles quizzes go wider if you want more.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how many chameleon species are known to science?
About 200
About 200. Older references list about 150, and the tally keeps growing as new species are named: one described in 2021 is known from only two specimens.
Q 02A large share of the world's chameleon species live only on which island?
Madagascar
Madagascar. Even a single species varies across the island: male panther chameleons are turquoise on Nosy Be and red or pink in other districts, so breeders name each colour form after its home area.
Q 03Chameleons have been introduced to which two places outside their native range?
Hawaii and Florida
Hawaii and Florida. Hawaii's wild Jackson's chameleons trace back to pets released at Kaneohe in 1972, and they have since settled on several of the islands.
Q 04The chameleon's grasping tail is often nicknamed what?
A fifth limb
A fifth limb. It coils round a branch to hold the chameleon steady, which frees the feet to reach for the next hold.
Q 05The Greek roots of the word 'chameleon' translate literally as what?
Ground lion
Ground lion. Khamai means 'on the ground' and leon 'lion', perhaps because the head crest of some species looked like a lion's mane.
Q 06What are the specialised colour cells layered in chameleon skin called?
Chromatophores
Chromatophores. Pigment is only part of the story: a 2015 study found that panther chameleons shift colour by changing the spacing of tiny light-reflecting crystals in their skin.
Q 07How do a chameleon's two eyes move as it scans its surroundings?
Independently
Independently. Each eye can track a different target, and once prey is picked out both swing forward together to aim the tongue.
Q 08A calm chameleon looks green because light reflected by skin crystals passes through pigment cells of what colour?
Yellow
Yellow. The tightly packed crystals of a calm chameleon reflect blue light, which the pigment above turns green; when the lizard is excited the crystals move apart and the skin shifts towards yellow and orange.
Q 09Beyond camouflage, colour change in chameleons is most commonly used for what?
Social signalling and temperature
Social signalling and temperature. A chameleon that needs warming turns darker to soak up more of the sun's heat, then pales again once it has heated up.
Q 10When displaying aggression to a rival, a chameleon tends to show what?
Brighter colours
Brighter colours. In contests between male veiled chameleons, the one whose head brightens most and fastest usually wins, and the loser signals defeat by turning dark.
Q 11How does a chameleon typically move along a branch?
Rocking back and forth
Rocking back and forth. The slow sway between steps is thought to mimic a branch stirring in the wind, which helps the chameleon avoid being noticed by predators.
Q 12Smith's dwarf chameleon adjusts its camouflage depending on what?
Which predator is threatening it
It depends on which predator is threatening it: the chameleon matches its background more closely for a bird than for a snake, because snakes tell colours apart less well.
Q 13The 'American chameleon' sold in pet shops is really which kind of lizard?
An anole
Q 21Which chameleons launch their tongues with the highest acceleration ever measured?
The smallest species
The smallest species. They carry a proportionately bigger tongue-launching apparatus, and one pygmy chameleon with a body under 5 cm long hit 264 g: zero to 60 mph in about a hundredth of a second.
Q 22Leaving the tail aside, how far can a typical chameleon shoot its tongue?
Twice its length
Twice its length. That is twice the body without the tail, and until it is fired the whole tongue sits bunched at the back of the throat like a compressed spring.
Q 23Because tongue projection relies on elastic recoil, chameleons can hunt effectively when?
On cold mornings
An anole. The green anole of the American South can shift between green and brown, which earned it the nickname, but no true chameleon is native to the Americas.
Q 14Studies suggest chameleons most likely originated where?
Mainland Africa
Mainland Africa. Its chameleons are thought to have multiplied as the continent's great forest broke up into savannah, grassland and heath, cutting populations off until they became separate species.
Q 15Roughly how long, tail included, can the world's longest chameleons grow?
About 70 cm
About 70 cm. Parson's and Oustalet's chameleons both come close to that, big enough to add small birds and other lizards to the usual diet of insects.
Q 16A chameleon's foot grips a branch like what?
Finger and thumb
Finger and thumb. Each foot looks two-toed but hides five: they are bound into a pair and a trio, and the pattern flips between the front and back feet.
Q 17A chameleon's upper and lower eyelids are joined, leaving only what for the pupil?
A pinhole
A pinhole. The cone-shaped lid turns with the eyeball like a gun turret, so a chameleon can take in almost the full circle around its body.
Q 18The short-lived Labord's chameleon typically lives about a year in all, most of it spent as what?
An egg
An egg. In the driest forests it lives only four or five months after hatching and no adults at all are found once breeding ends, so the next generation waits out most of the year as eggs.
Q 19A chameleon's unusual eye lens enlarges the image much as which camera lens would?
A telephoto lens
A telephoto lens. Unlike any other backboned animal's, a chameleon's lens spreads light rather than focusing it, giving the largest image for the eye's size and the sharp focus it uses to judge range.
Q 20The skull bones of many chameleons glow blue through the skin under which kind of light?
Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet. Bony bumps on the skull sit under skin so thin that it works as a window, and each species glows in its own pattern of dots, which suggests the lizards use it as a signal.
On cold mornings. Chilled muscle slows right down but a stretched elastic band does not: a 10°C drop cost the tongue's launch less than 20% of its speed, against over 40% for the muscle-powered pull back.
Q 24What lets the tip of a chameleon's tongue hold on to an insect as it is yanked back?
Thick, sticky mucus
Thick, sticky mucus. It is about 400 times more viscous than human saliva, which is how the tongue can haul in prey weighing nearly a third as much as the lizard itself.
Q 25Chameleons live wild in only a few corners of Europe, including the far south of which country?
Spain
Spain. Even there its status is argued over: some authorities count the common chameleon as native to the southern coast, while others list it as a species people introduced.
Q 26Brookesia, the leaf chameleons, spend most of their lives where?
On the forest floor
On the forest floor. These mostly brown lizards live among the leaf litter they resemble, and unlike their tree-climbing relatives they have short, stubby tails that cannot grip.
Q 27What is the main cause of declining chameleon numbers?
Habitat loss
Habitat loss. Many chameleons live in one small patch of forest, so slash-and-burn farming or logging on a single hillside can take out most of a species' range.
Q 28The eggs of Parson's chameleon are notoriously slow to hatch, taking up to about how long?
About two years
About two years. Most chameleon eggs hatch within twelve months, and as a female Parson's lays at most one clutch a year, each new generation is a long time coming.
Q 29What does a female veiled chameleon do with her eggs?
Buries them
Buries them. She digs a hole, covers the clutch of dozens and walks away for good, so the hatchlings never meet a parent and are hunting insects for themselves within days.
Q 30Jackson's chameleon gives birth to live young; how does the mother deposit each one?
Sticks it onto a branch
She sticks it onto a branch: each baby arrives wrapped in a sticky, see-through membrane, bursts out of it, and climbs away to hunt for itself.