LEARNING TO SEE BY LOOKING FOR CHAMELEONS
By Sophia Roberts, Student Researcher, La Mananara Field Site
For most of my life, my vision has been poor. I remember putting on my glasses for the first time and going outside when I was eight years old. I was amazed that the leaves had individual shapes—even from far away—and were not just little green blobs. Finding chameleons, however, is not a problem addressed with simply wearing corrective lenses. It requires not just looking, but seeing, while walking through an incredibly dense, vibrant forest full of endless distractions. Seeing requires processing the world around you, instead of passively watching it go by. Any drifting of concentration results in your eyes wandering and an inability to actually see. Seeing takes far more mental capacity than just looking.
When I first started my chameleon research in April, I quickly realized that actually finding the chameleons would be one of the most challenging aspects of my work. Chameleons use a range of techniques to keep themselves camouflaged. They use a rocking movement to mimic the motion of leaves in the wind, and their changing coloration makes it possible for them to blend in with their surroundings. My eyes were simply not accustomed to the task at hand.
Luckily, I was working with amazing forest guides already adept at spotting chameleons. Their skill continually impressed me: they would quickly see chameleons along the trail that would’ve taken me minutes of staring at a single branch to locate.
Living in New York City for my college years taught me to look without seeing. There, really processing everybody and everything I passed would be too mentally taxing, so I learned to walk down the street without taking in the details of the world around me. Now, walking in the woods, searching for chameleons, I’m training myself to see again.
But before seeing actual chameleons, I started seeing chameleons in everything else: a cluster of dry leaves, the way the sun hit the trunk of a tree, the way a certain branch twisted. On Easter Sunday in April, a bunch of the researchers and I decided to take a swim in the nearby lake. We spent most of our time in the water, floating on our backs in an effort to avoid having our feet touch the mucky bottom. We stared at the clouds above, and I told my friend that I saw a chameleon in the clouds. She said she saw an elephant, and we started laughing when we realized that we were looking at the same cloud.
After that day at the lake, about two weeks into my field research, I began actually finding chameleons on my own.
During my time spent at La Mananara, I was studying the habitat selection of the two largest chameleon species found in the Anjozorobe-Angavo forest: the Endangered globe-horned chameleon (Calumma globifer) and the short-horned chameleon (Calumma brevicorne). Habitat selection is a crucial survival mechanism for chameleons, and they are likely to show sensitivity to climate change and land-use changes due to their reliance on external environmental factors. Research on the microhabitats these chameleons prefer will help us gain insight into how to best protect and conserve them.
A typical research day began with waking up in my tent at 6 a.m. and getting dressed quickly, before the cold morning air made it too difficult to leave my cozy tent. I would head to the research station bathroom, get ready for the day, and then head back outside to eat rice with some sort of vegetable or egg accompaniment by the fire for breakfast.
After breakfast and coffee, one of the forest guides and I would head into the forest to look for the chameleons I had already found during a previous night survey. Throughout the day, I would return to each chameleon I was following (usually two to five individuals) every hour. Every time I returned to them, I would take environmental measurements at their location. This included location, air temperature, surface temperature of the chameleon, and the surface it was resting on, percent canopy cover, canopy height, percent understory, as well as other measurements to characterize the environment and forest structure at the chameleon’s location.
Some weeks, I would hike 10 miles a day to take the hourly measurements on chameleons located very far apart. One week, we encountered brown lemurs on our way home, and often I’d see snakes bathing on the trail path. For a few days, there was a group of diademed sifaka near one of my chameleons.
Around 12 p.m. each day, I would take an hour break for lunch and go back to eat at camp. Usually, we had red rice and beans with a cucumber or carrot salad. My favorite bean that the cooks would make is called voanjobory (bambara groundnuts) and was somewhat similar in taste and texture to a chickpea.
Afterwards, I would head back into the forest for another two to three hours of work. Sometimes, after weeks of this on end, my work would start to feel a little monotonous. But looking at the beautiful forest surrounding me—the incredible plants, trees, birds, and bugs all so unique and new to me—I’d remember that I was in a FOREST in MADAGASCAR and just like that I would feel reinvigorated by my work and the importance of conservation efforts in Madagascar.
Returning to camp at the end of the workday, I would do a little data entry in the field station and then hang out with the other researchers. We’d spend time chatting, playing Uno, or watching a show together. Dinner would usually be ready between 6 and 7 p.m. at which point we would head outside to the dining room and eat close together to stay warm. Following dinner and some Ranon’ampango (hot rice water) or olive leaf tea from freshly picked leaves, we would start settling down for bed. After the electricity was turned off at 9, I’d head to my tent and rest up for the following day and the adventures it would bring.
