{"id":44618,"date":"2026-06-22T20:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T20:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/44618\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T20:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T20:31:15","slug":"chameleons-spread-across-spain-as-experts-urge-people-not-to-take-them-home-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/44618\/","title":{"rendered":"Chameleons spread across Spain as experts urge people not to take them home | Climate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bright green, brown, dark, speckled or almost disguised as a shrub, the chameleon \u2014 the king of camouflage \u2014 is expanding its territory across the Iberian Peninsula<\/a>, which is home to the largest European population of the protected species. It has moved beyond its historic strongholds in the Spanish provinces of M\u00e1laga, C\u00e1diz and Huelva to establish itself in new areas of Almer\u00eda, Granada, Murcia, Alicante and Valencia, advancing along the Mediterranean coast. But it is not traveling alone. Much of its expansion is driven by people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt moves from place to place because people take it with them. It\u2019s a reptile people like, unlike snakes. No one would think of picking up a viper! And besides, it doesn\u2019t bite, it doesn\u2019t spit, and it\u2019s beautiful,\u201d explains Emilio Gonz\u00e1lez Mir\u00e1s, president of the Serbal Association and one of the authors of the new distribution map for the species.<\/p>\n

Designed to go unnoticed, the common chameleon (Chamaeleo chamaeleon) rarely leaves the branches where it lives. It is Europe\u2019s only arboreal reptile and can spend several months perched in shrubs or trees, where it sleeps, feeds\u2026 It only comes down to the ground to move from one shrub to another. This happens more often in summer, during the breeding season.<\/p>\n

\"\"A chameleon in Los Ca\u00f1os de Meca in the Spanish province of C\u00e1diz, in the summer of 2025.E. S.<\/p>\n

On the ground, it moves very slowly \u2014 unless it is fleeing \u2014 and only within its immediate surroundings, which makes it impossible for individuals to reach locations hundreds of miles away on their own without intermediate populations, as has happened, for example, in Valencia. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt can only be explained by human intervention,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez Mir\u00e1s stresses. To make up for this slow pace, its extremely long tongue shoots out at more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) per hour, striking its prey in just a few hundredths of a second.<\/p>\n

The risks for the reptile, which measures between 15 and 30 centimeters, multiply when it leaves its shelter. Not even its extraordinary eyesight \u2014 which allows it to move its eyes independently and focus on two different points at once \u2014 protects it from being eaten by other animals, run over<\/a>, or captured by someone who takes a fancy to it, This is illegal, as it is a wild species listed under special protection, meaning it cannot be captured, transported, traded, or have its nests and habitats destroyed.<\/p>\n

\"\"A chameleon crossing a road next to a vehicle.J. Gallego<\/p>\n

Color changes are of little use to the reptile at such moments. It relies on them not only for camouflage<\/a>, but also to signal stress, show its state of health and communicate with other chameleons. \u201cPregnant females, for example, put on something like a polka-dotted flamenco dress to make it clear to males that it\u2019s not the time to approach,\u201d explains Juan Pablo Gonz\u00e1lez de la Vega, a herpetologist and co-author of the new distribution atlas for the species.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve never seen a chameleon before \u2014 which is most people \u2014you might think it\u2019s lost and that nothing\u2019s wrong with taking it home,\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez Mir\u00e1s. But there is a problem: they do not cope well in captivity and, if they escape, they can die, either because of the climate or because they fail to find a mate. The advice is simple: \u201cCome and see me if you like, but leave me where I am and enjoy me there \u2014 because I\u2019m not lost,\u201d the biologist adds. <\/p>\n

Color also helps them regulate their body temperature: they darken in the cold and become lighter when the heat intensifies.<\/p>\n

A pregnant female moved to a new location by someone could create a new population. \u201cDepending on the age of the female, they usually lay between five and 40 eggs, and some may survive and begin to establish themselves,\u201d suggests Gonz\u00e1lez de la Vega. Mating begins in summer, females bury their eggs in September, and the young hatch between June and July of the following year. And it is precisely at this time \u2014 when they move around the most \u2014 that both human activity and traffic increase, along with the risk of being run over.<\/p>\n

Urban development along the coast has also led to the disappearance or decline of urban and peri-urban populations. In these environments, dogs and cats are also responsible for a high mortality rate in the species, whose original arrival in the Iberian Peninsula remains unclear. \u201cWhatever its origin, it is now considered a naturalized species fully integrated into Iberian fauna,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez Mir\u00e1s notes. It is also present in most countries across North Africa, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, Greece, Turkey, Malta, Sicily and other Mediterranean islands.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bright green, brown, dark, speckled or almost disguised as a shrub, the chameleon \u2014 the king of camouflage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[978,20247,2457,5443,20246,17,95],"class_list":["post-44618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-alicante","tag-fauna","tag-malaga","tag-murcia","tag-reptiles","tag-spain","tag-valencia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}