Chameleons think bone fluorescence is sexy

Imagine you had bone spurs coming out of your eyebrows that fluoresced under UV light in a way that attracted mates. That’s what chameleons do, according to a new study in Scientific Reports! Chameleons have a lot of ways to talk to each other, including most famously with their ability to change skin color. But this bone fluorescence strategy is a more subtle way to show off their sexiness to each other, and it may appear in other places in the tree of life. I can assure you that many, many researchers are now looking at their specimens to see if their study organisms do this as well.