Hello there!

I am a primary school teacher in the UK and would be very grateful for any ideas from the users of this forum on a problem that is intriguing me.

During a literacy lesson today we were inventing imaginary creatures and describing them in letters to the Natural History Museum. A child, who had invented a creature that was able to change its hue as a chameleon does, asked me what the word for 'being able to change colour' was. I confessed that I didn't know but felt sure that we could find out. Well...after much internet research and some wild guesses looked up in all manner of dictionaries ('chromomorphic' was my favourite, but I seem to have made it up) we had no positive results at all.

Does anybody know if there is a word to describe the ability of an animal to change colour? It seems odd that there wouldn't be...maybe we have the license to make one up!

Thanks!

Bora da, Leroy!

I quite like 'chromomorphic', too.

However, why not try the simple 'colour-changing', or 'chameleon-like'? They at least have the advantage of probably being readily understood by your audience!

Da boch chi!

During my tenure as a zoo docent, I have only heard "cryptocoloration" and "camouflage." My "Dictionary of Science" doesn't mention any scientific terms for the phenomenon.

Any of these any good?

metachromatism
metachrosis
allochroous

Thanks guys! I really like metachrosis. That seems to be as close as I can get...

Cymraeg wych Arnie!

This isn't an answer, but it reminded me of some old posts we've had here and here on colors. There are some great words of color.

It also reminded me of some people who used to post here, like aput and museamuse. I sure wish they'd pop back in sometime, especially now that things seem a little slow here.