Oh now I see what you mean!

I am not sure how or why exactly this happens, perhaps it’s a combination of several factors. Scales are more complex then we think, I have already posted about there water channelling properties on these lizards, now hears a little more about scales.

Think of acanthosaura as chameleons, they are more related then many lizards, both are tree lovers, both have color changing abilities, and both have a sticky tong pad.

These simple criteria’s actually says a lot about them, lets brake it down to better understand why they get so dull and dark.

Arboreal; arboreal lizards communicate 80% by signal (body language) 20% olfactory (Hormones)
Coloration; coloration adds to the signal vocabulary of these lizards, bright colors showing domination and breeding readiness, dark colors show submissiveness.
This is the social part about scales. Now the physiological aspect of scales, when the lizards is wormed up these scales are bright and reflects heat off the body, this to prevent overheating, when the lizard is cool these scales are dark, this allows grater heat absorption, this is typical of most lizards, but acanthosaura may have pushed this trait to an other level, there scales have the ability to become matt (less reflective) this furthermore increasing heat absorption as the sun rays are not reflected but absorbed. This same attribute can help one individual in his submissive role when caged with unknown individuals, captives raised in groups don’t show this.

Sticky pad; of course grabbing insects comes to mind, however this pad is also responsible for collecting minerals on the forest floor and rocks, this plays in our favour when wee feed them dusted insects in bowls, its also the reason I don’t use peat moss or coco crap as substrate.

I hope this answers a few questions.

Rgds

Ps. I own 30 adult imports and raising as breeders about 75 hand picked babies from these adults, I hope to offer some outstanding acanthosaura’s in a few years.

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