When a team of researchers slowed down a tiny chameleon grabbing its prey with its tongue, they learned it did so with more power relative to its size than a larger relative.
"It's an example of morphological evolution being driven by metabolic constraints," the study's author, Christopher Anderson, a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University, told Live Science.
Anderson published his study in the journal Scientific Reports and he included a short video displaying the tiny chameleon's tongue captured by high-speed cameras.
"Smaller species have higher performance than larger species," he said in a press release. "What this study shows is that by using smaller species, we may be able to elucidate these higher performance values."
Anderson recorded 55 different chameleons using their tongues to grab their prey. The chameleons ranged between 20 different species and in length as well, with the shortest measuring 1.6 inches and the longest 7.8 inches.
As the chameleon got smaller, its tongue capabilities got better, as the shorter ones could project their tongues farther and with more burst.
"Power output, we're talking 14,000 watts per kilogram," Anderson told Live Science. "As body size increases, acceleration capacity decreases.
"So small organisms, based on physics alone, are expected to have high accelerations."
