For a creature that has to cope with several kinds of predators, it can help to have a diversified defensive strategy  adjusting appearance or behavior depending on the enemy.

Because chameleons are famous for the ability to adjust appearance, might they have such a predator-specific approach to defending themselves? In a paper in Biology Letters, researchers describe one chameleon that does.

Image Credit... Adnan Moussalli

Devi Stuart-Fox, formerly of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and now at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and colleagues studied how the Smith’s dwarf chameleon, Bradypodion taeniabronchum, responds to two common predators, a bird and a snake.