Chameleons: The Evolution Of Their Skin Color

This species lives in the eucalyptus forests of tasmania, although the tasmanian tiger can also live in other habitats besides the eucalyptus forest.

They like to live in the trees, but they get along very well on the ground.

Source: Figure obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Graph retrieved 18 October 2009 from http://www.cpc. ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/uv_index/gif_files/uvi_world_f1.gif. This U.S. Government material is not subject to copyright protection within the United States.

Habitat: Gharials live in rivers. They especially like calm areas of deep rivers. They like to gather on the sandbanks of the rivers to bask and to nest, but mostly they don’t go onto dry land because they can’t lift their bodies off of the ground.

The temperate woodland and shrubland biome, also known as chaparral is only found in a couple of places. It tends to grow in regions surrounding oceans such as western North America, central Chile, southwestern Australia, the southern tip of Africa, and around the Mediterranean Sea. In the summer the temperature is about 40 degrees Celsius and in the winter is 10 degrees Celsius. This biome has hot, dry summers and mildly cold, wet winters.

eyes). They can also change the size of their melanophores to adjust colors slightly, giving them an

Where do they live? They live in Africa mostly but they can also be found in Asia. They can be

Chaparral biomes are located in small isolated areas throughout most continents, according to Kids do Ecology. These locations are usually by a large body of water such as the oceans. In general, Chaparrals do not cover vast amounts of land area. One Chaparral location example mentioned by Kids do Ecology, is the United States, in Santa Barbra, California. There are also chaparrals around the Mediterranean Sea, Southwest North America, the middle of Chile, Southern Australia and Southwest Africa (Raven, 116).

Red-tailed hawks live in deciduous forests and open areas. Here are some places where they might live, swamps, deserts, tundra, plains, and

Nutria once lived only in southern South America, but have now traveled around the world. In many areas including Canada and more than a dozen U.S. States.

The Southern Screamer is a bird that is a great swimmer and flier, although it is non-migratory. They live in parts of southern america like Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Southern Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina. They mostly live in Estuaries, freshwater marshes, and subtropical swamps. They have also been sited close to other large bodies of water.

Bisons are located in Northern America, part of North Mexico, middle area of USA, most part of Canada and Alaska.

Another obvious reason such a soft-bodied animal would change colour is to hide from predators. An example of animal use colour as a survival mechanism is Cuttlefish. These fish change its colour and texture to blend into its surrounding. It uses a sensor to detect the amount of light that being absorbed from the environment then it uses the information collected to mimic it with its own pigments. Cuttlefish have three different skin layers brown, red and yellow, which can be adjusted in a various way to to make its unique colour designs and patterns. Therefore, these mechanisms allow cuttlefish to escape from predators, as well as sneak up on unsuspecting prey (Holmes, M 1940).

It is not well understood exactly why women tend to have lighter skin tones that men, it was thought that this was due to the difference in sun exposure as men worked outside more than women, however, Jablonski states that because the discrepancy is based on skin tone that is not exposed to the sun, this is not the reason. “The discrepancy due to skin color is due to more than sun exposure habits; it is indicative of an underlying and genetically based set of causes” (64). The research into these causes is still carrying on as they have not found the precise reasoning, but the possibility that the lighter skin for women would be a way to ensure their health during pregnancy and breastfeeding is hypothesized but there is not enough experimental evidence (70). This is an area that I would like to have more information on as new research discloses. This chapter also discusses the hypothesis of sexual selection as a reason for the gap between the sexes, as men may have preferred lighter skinned women and the different variations for the reasoning of this, however, there is a lack of empirical evidence