This Viral Video of a Chameleon Changing Colors is Fake

A video on YouTube showing a chameleon rapidly changing color has over 20 million views and was recently picked up by news websites — but it is a fake.

Chameleons cannot change color quickly and they can’t turn pink or blue like in the 2016 video posted by “The Animal Box Office.” Despite its fakeness, there are very few comments under the video pointing out the truth. Perhaps that’s thanks to the video description which reads, “A Chameleon changes color out in the wild of Madagascar.”

“It seems the world has a huge misconception about how chameleons actually change color,” says Charlie from The Odd Animal Specimens who made a video setting the record straight.

Charlie adds that chameleons don’t change color to blend in with their environment as is often depicted in popular culture. “Chameleons blend in more with their default color [green], when they change color they’re very bright and colorful. This would be terrible for camouflage.”

Charlie says that chameleons mostly change color as a reflection of their mood. “When they’re very bright, or colorful, that means they are very excited so maybe they’re interested in fighting or mating.” He adds that when chameleons are more muted colors, it means they are more submissive or relaxed.

Numerous chameleon color changing videos that appear at the top of YouTube search are fake. The sunglasses company Ray-Ban once put out an ad in which a chameleon changes color according to the hue of sunglasses it encounters. Despite it being a commercial, it has gone viral on various platforms over the years with people believing it to be genuine.

Snopes published an article about the ad reporting that it was created by the Cutwater ad agency in March 2009 for Ray-Ban and it used “digital trickery” to change the color of the chameleon.

“We all want to believe that chameleons can camouflage their bodies into these spectacular colors, but in reality, they only have four shades to work with — yellow, red, blue, and brown,” writes Science Made Fun. “They can mix colors to create other colors but not to the vibrancy or as quickly as depicted in the viral YouTube video.”