Chameleons are reptiles that have been living on Earth for over 100 million years. Chameleon fossils date back to the Paleonzene period. Their fossils have been found in Africa, Europe and Asia. Over half of the species of the chameleons live in Madagascar (Raxworthy, 2004). Chameleons are in the Animal Kingdom and Chordata Phylum. They get their name from the Family they are grouped in called Chamaeleonidae. Chameleons are closely realted to iguanas and other lizards. Although they are similar, chameleons have unique features that distinguish them from other lizards. The most distinguishing feature of chameleons is their ability to change the color of their skin. Chameleons have special cells that allows it to change colors. These special cells are called chromatophores (Raxworthy, 2004). They contain layers of pigments that lie below their outer skin. Dispersion of the pigment granules in the chromatophores determines how deep the color is. When the pigment is equally distributed in a chromatophore, the whole cell is deeply colored. When the pigment is located only in...
The white (w) eye color gene is located on the X chromosome at 1.5 genetic map units (1). The mutation is also recessive, meaning that each fly has different copies of the gene if they are either male or female (2). In wild-type Drosophila, the brick red color is visible due to the combination of two pigments, brown and scarlet. The synthesis of drosopterin for bright red pigments is controlled by the (bw+) gene and the synthesis of ommochromes for brown pigments is controlled by the (st+) gene (7). Therefore, there are two pigment synthesis pathways that must be working in order for the flies to express the brick red eye color. In addition, transport proteins are responsible for transporting both pigments into the eye in order to express the color (8). Thus, both the pathways responsible for the synthesis of brown and red pigments must work properly as well as the genes that encode for transport proteins. Despite having white eyes, Drosophila flies with this mutation still experience normal eyesight
Hyla versicolor, commonly know as the Gray Tree Frog or the Eastern Gray Tree Frog, is an amphibian that is referred to as the “Chameleon of the Frog world” (Craighead, 2004, p.1) because of its ability to change colors. “This frog was once thought to be the same species as the Cope’s Gray Tree Frog”. They can only be distinguished by their calls and the fact that the Cope Gray Tree Frog is diploid while the Gray Tree Frog is tetraploid (NPWRC, 2004). The Gray Tree Frog is classified as follows:
Both Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” shows a relationship between siblings and parents. The siblings in “Everyday Use”, Maggie and Dee, have a strained relationship because of their difference and that does not change throughout the story. The siblings in “The Metamorphosis”, Gregor and Grete, have a loving relationship in the beginning that does however turn sour throughout the story. Mama in “Everyday Use” loves her daughter’s equally but has a closer relationship with Maggie. The parents in “The Metamorphosis” however turn abusive towards their son after his transformation and loving and caring towards Grete.
Although I’ve never seen a pig turn into a tree, nature has its own version of shapeshifting: camouflage. In addition to color changes, as exemplified by the chameleon, there are many other traits that can be harnessed for their shapeshifting potential, such as changes in texture and bioluminescence. The golden tortoise beetle can change from a shiny gold to a dull red by altering the moisture levels of grooves in the shell; this changes the reflectivity of the outer shell, creating a surface that varies from shiny to dull. The mutable rain frog can change the texture of its skin from spiny to smooth in a matter of seconds; it does this so quickly that one researcher thought she had photographed the wrong specimen. While bioluminescence in itself is a pretty remarkable trait, some bioluminescent animals exhibit a variation called counter-illumination, where they produce light to match an illuminated background.
Nicholson KE, Harmon LJ, Losos JB. Evolution of Anolis Lizard Dewlap Diversity. PLOS ONE. 2007
There is a gene which accounts for colouration, the Agouti gene, the most interesting of the Agouti genes is the Agouti viable yellow “Avy “
An inspection of the modern animal phyla will reveal that eyes are just as diverse as they are complex. Some organisms like the rag worm have pigmented cup eyes while other like he box jellyfish have two lens eyes and two pairs of pigment pit eyes. To account for the diversity in eye structure, we must first examine the eye ‘prototype’, the original structure that was acted upon by evolution. The simplest organ that can be considered an eye is composed of a single photoreceptor cell and a single pigment cell, without any lens or other refractive body (Arendt, 2003). Such organs are know as eyespots, and...
Human pigmentation is influenced by hemoglobins within blood vessels in the skin, carotene and melanins. Melanin, the basis of pigmentation, can be found in the forms of eumelanin and phaeomelanin. Eumelanin is the brown-black pigment located in the skin, hair, and eyes. Phaeomelanin is a yellow to reddish-brown pigment found in small quantities within the skin, eyes, and red hair. Because of these two pigments, to a greater or lesser degree, we have the variation in human pigmentation that is seen today.
about him. She took care of him and fed him when no one else seemed to
Metamorphosis is a story that is easily related to this ever so cruel world and the life each of us live today. Each of us experience alienation just as Gregor did in the story. We experience from friends and even worse family. When changes arrive that we can't cope with,
Photosynthesis is a widely studied topic among the world of science due to its importance for life and its many uses. Photosynthetic pigments reflect and absorb different wavelengths of visible light based off their polarity. In this experiment, we studied photosynthetic pigments, first, by determining polarity and then, by measuring the amount of light of a given wavelength that a pigment absorbs. We used two methods in this experiment, chromatography and spectrophotometry. For the first portion of our experiment we determined the distance each pigment migrated, their R_f values, and their polarity. Our predications based off polarity, lead to our hypothesis
1. The colours would be adjusted to this type of skin( a wide variety of darker colours )
Ants, Little but Mighty. What is an ant? Ants are insects, they have six legs and each leg has three joints. Ants legs are very strong.