In the world of nature documentaries, there are moments that stop you in your tracks—moments that reveal something so raw, so extraordinary, that it leaves an indelible mark on your memory. One such moment recently captured in a new PBS documentary series, Big Little Journeys, is the rare and dramatic final moments of a Furcifer labordi chameleon. This footage not only showcases the beauty of this unique creature but also presents a stunning, never-before-seen phenomenon: the animal’s final act of life is an explosion of vibrant color.
The Furcifer Labordi: A Chameleon with a Remarkably Short Life
Endemic to Madagascar, the Furcifer labordi is a chameleon with a truly remarkable and, in many ways, tragic life cycle. Unlike most animals, which can live for years, the Furcifer labordi has one of the shortest lifespans of any vertebrate species, living only four to five months after hatching. In fact, it spends the majority of its life in the egg, with incubation lasting eight to nine months.
The life of a female Furcifer labordi is especially short. After laying her eggs and covering them to protect them from the coming dry season, she dies. The males don’t fare much better, expending all their energy in a desperate, short-lived fight to mate before also succumbing to death. As researchers Valeria Fabbri-Kennedy and herpetologist Chris Raxworthy from the American Museum of Natural History explain, during two-thirds of the year, the entire population of this chameleon species exists only as eggs buried underground. The adults simply aren’t designed to survive the dry season.
The death of these chameleons is a somber and inevitable part of their life cycle, but it’s also a cycle that contributes to the survival of their offspring—allowing them to withstand the harsh conditions that would otherwise make life on Madagascar’s arid landscape nearly impossible.
A Colorful Death: Nature’s Final Gift
For the film crew working on Big Little Journeys, their goal was simple: to document the full life cycle of the Furcifer labordi, from birth to death. However, they got more than they bargained for when they witnessed a female chameleon, having just laid her eggs, begin to slow down. Sensing something was about to happen, the crew set up a time-lapse camera and returned a few hours later to find that the chameleon had passed away.
What they discovered in the footage was unlike anything they had expected. “We were astonished and moved by the colorful display that was captured—something that scientists had never observed in nature before,” said Fabbri-Kennedy and Raxworthy. The chameleon, in its final moments, experienced a frenetic shift in color, almost as if the animal was unleashing a final burst of life before it faded away.
This transformation was a mesmerizing, chaotic display of technicolor patterns, as the skin of the chameleon rapidly changed colors in an almost fiery spectacle. “In its final moments, its skin bursts into color, as if the chameleon was uttering its last words,” the narrator of the documentary explains.
The Science Behind the Color Explosion
Chameleons are famous for their ability to change color, a skill they achieve through specialized cells in their skin that contain nanocrystals. By expanding and contracting these cells, they can reflect light differently, creating the colorful patterns we associate with chameleons.
Interestingly, even after death, the chameleon’s body continues to send nerve signals, which cause the skin cells to shift and change. As Fabbri-Kennedy and Raxworthy explain, this process continues after the chameleon’s death, resulting in the vibrant, chaotic colors seen in the video. It’s a final, instinctual act that’s driven by the nervous system, even though the creature has already passed.
Watching this footage is like witnessing the life of a chameleon unfold in reverse—a final burst of beauty before its inevitable end. For those lucky enough to see it, it serves as a powerful reminder of the delicate, yet awe-inspiring nature of life and death in the animal kingdom.
While the chameleon’s fate may be a tragic one, the footage captured by the Big Little Journeys crew offers a rare, poignant glimpse into the world of one of Madagascar’s most fascinating creatures. It’s a moment of nature’s brilliance—both in life and death—that few have had the privilege to witness.
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