An Interview With Morton, The Houndstooth Check Chameleon

This interview was conducted on behalf of the Disabled Chameleon Outreach Program. DCOP is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping chromatophorically challenged chameleons find a normative lifestyle which suits them best.

DCOP: Morton, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. I know that sometimes it can be difficult to discuss... your situation.

Morton: DCOP has been very good to me... If by enumerating the various struggles and hardships I have had to endure I can assist DCOP in their philanthropic endeavors, then I can rest easily tonight, knowing I have helped in some small way. We all give what we can give.

DCOP: You're very gracious. Why don't we start at the beginning- when did you first suspect that you were different from your peers?

Morton: To be perfectly frank with you, I've been aware of my own idiosyncracies for so long that I can't remember a time when I wasn't. In fact, some of my earliest memories center around my growing awareness of my condition.

DCOP: That condition being...

Morton: I am chromatophorically challenged. You see, most chameleons are able to rapidly change their color to suit their mood or to blend into their surroundings, thanks to a specialized set of pigmented cells called chromatophores. While I possess a full range of chromatophores, the neural mechanisms underlying my control of this marvelous camoflauging ability are somewhat abberant, in that they will only produce a burgundy and cream houndstooth check pattern.

DCOP: And how has this affected your life as a chameleon?

Morton: Negatively, I'm afraid... You see, we chameleons have evolved to rely on our color-changing abilities for many purposes. Obviously, being able to blend into the background provides a certain level of stealth, useful not only hunting, but also for avoiding the eyes of hungry predators. Having been deprived of that stealth, excepting the remarkably rare occasion when I am in front of a burgundy and cream houndstooth check sportcoat, I have had to become rather more... Creative would be the word, I guess.

DCOP: Elaborate, please.

Morton: Well, neither burgundy nor cream are colors found particularly commonly in nature, let alone alternating side by side in a repeating motif. What I have learned, however, is that the visual systems of many of the insects on which I prey are primitive enough that they can be tricked. For instance, many locusts can detect contrast quite well, but have only a rudimentary grasp of color. To take advantage of this, I will sometimes position myself atop a mound of pebbles of my own design. I mix small chunks of dark volcanic rock or clay with lighter bits of bone or limestone to create a roughly houndstooth checkered visual field against which I am nearly invisible to most locusts. If locusts are nowhere to be found, I will often use a more traditional form of camoflauge. My wife Beatrice, who has been incredibly supportive of me and understanding of my situation, will daub my hide with sticky mud from a rivulet in a clay bank near our home and then affix all manner of leaves, bark, and twigs to me. After just a few minutes in the sun, the mud dries and cements my disguise on me well enough that I can hunt larger prey, such as mantises, beetles, and the occasional small bird.

DCOP: Your camoflauging techniques seem relatively advanced. Is this a result of years of trial and error? How did they develop?

Morton: Actually, I have the Disabled Chameleon Outreach Program to thank for my strategies. My parents, requiem in terra pax, realized while I was still very young that they were not equipped to teach me the stratagies I needed to be able to live a normal life as a chameleon. Madagascar is unforgiving enough as is, but it is doubly unforgiving to a houndstooth check chameleon. At any rate, my parents knew this and were wise enough to contact DCOP when I was just a child. DCOP assured me that I wasn't the only chameleon going through what I was going through, and they put me in contact with other chromatophorically challenged chameleons in the area. There was Bernard, the paisely chameleon, Yusouf, the arabesque chameleon, and Vincent, the Mandelbrot set chameleon. During the time I spent with the other disabled chameleons I learned many invaluable lessons about camoflauge, mating, communication, and, most importantly, self-worth. They taught me that while my condition may make some aspects of my life more difficult, my life was still worth living, and living to the fullest. If anything, the fact that I have to put extra effort into ekeing my way through my life only makes me appreciate it more. I don't take anything for granted, and I feel lucky to be that way.

DCOP: Well put. Thank you once more for speaking with us today.

Morton: My pleasure.

For more of this interview and others, look for DCOP Books' You Can't Disguise Who You Really Are: Conversations With Disabled Chameleons, available in paperback Spring 2007.