How do animals like chameleons and octopus know what color to change to?

Question

How do animals like chameleons and octopus know what color to change to?

In: 7

Answer 1

Not sure about octopuses, but IIRC, chameleons change colour to regulate body heat and also to communicate emotional state to other chameleons. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t do it as a means of camouflage.

Here’s an article about it: https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/revealed-why-and-how-chameleon-change-its-colour.html

Answer 2

There’s a SUPER good documentary called Kings of Camouflage on YouTube…it shows that cuttlefish have this weird direct link between their vision and their color changing cells so they literally don’t think about it, their skin changes colors based on what they see to camouflage. Def watch it!