Chameleonology

August 25, 2026

Today, while walking to the main road, I spotted a chameleon. It was trying to cross the road hurriedly. It has always been my norm to help them cross the road each time I spot them by picking a twig, letting them walk onto it, and then gently discarding it on the other end. I do this because I understand ecology and the role chameleons play in their ecosystems. But today, it was different. There were no twigs and the road was also busy as it often is (motorcycles passing, many people walking, and cars moving - all these happening from either end of the road). As such, I decided to slow down and stare back at it to ensure that it made it safely to the other end of the road.

While at it, I whipped out my phone to google these exact lines: "the study of chameleons is called" and then, I pressed the Enter key only to be redirected to the word "herpetology". However, I was still unsatisfied with the word since I deemed it too shallow by virtue of it referring to the general study of reptiles and amphibians. I understand a chameleon is a reptile, yes! But, I am interested in one word that refers to a specialist or the specific or scientific study of the chameleon as a single entity. My mind went on an overdrive while I recalled that the study of butterflies is called lepidopterology. For a moment, I kept wondering why Google was not showing a single word that specifically referred to the study of chameleons.

While on the commute to meet a friend, I decided to go specifically to Gemini and I keyed in these exact words: "is there a specific word that refers to the scientific study of chameleons?" And that's when I was bamboozled! You mean they just picked up the name of the animal and added the suffix "-logy"? I could not help but think of Biology (study of life (bio)) and Geology (study of Earth (Geo)). I quickly updated my WhatsApp status with the following words to express my wonder: "So, the scientific study of chameleons is called chameleonology?"

In the evening, an idea came to me that I ought to revive my writing career. After all, the meetup with my friend revolved around how long we had stayed in this town (it is over a decade now) and I soon remembered that I had simultaneously "taken" a decade hiatus from writing. What really burned the fire in me is that currently, we live in a world where attention is the new currency. Doom-scrolling has become the norm such that a video clip going over close to ten seconds of viewing is deemed long. I purposed to revive writing my own thoughts with little to no regard for grammar because I understand that my writing will get better as I write more consistently without receiving aid from Artificial Intelligence (AI) (this has become the norm now yet the last time I used to write and post consistently on my blog, I would often sit down and type out my own thoughts regardless of grammar (there were people who used to email or WhatsApp me with suggestions for corrections. I bet you will do the same for this new era of my writing)).

As I conclude, I am certain that you can tell I have written this piece from my mind by virtue of it being hard to follow and sentence structures being broken in some parts. Those few writing errors or plain writing characterized by lack of consistency in the flow of thoughts is not intentional. It is just that I am trying to get back to the good old days where writing from the mind without external aid was the norm (characterized by writing several rough drafts and refining them well until a final copy was produced) in as much as the world now appreciates faster execution speeds and short-form video content that passes the message in less than ten seconds. Until then, let me purpose to be consistent.