She's watching you: Meet the veiled chameleon at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Girl George is giving visitors the side eye from a branch in her warm, humid, leafy enclosure in Scutes Family Gallery at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Not just a side eye, but a backward eye and a forward eye. She’s giving all the eyes one might expect a veiled chameleon to give. The kelly-green 5-year-old has more than a 180-degree view of the world around her and can look in two directions at the same time.

All the better to observe you with.

“She spends a lot of the day resting or watching guests,” said Scutes Family Gallery lead keeper Amber Callen-Ward.

But that’s only if you can find her. She’s a chameleon, after all, famous for blending in with her environment, though she can’t mimic all the colors of the rainbow. Purple, for instance, is a no go.

But most mornings Callen-Ward can find her vibrant green body toward the top of her enclosure, near the UVB lights that mimic sunlight.

If she’s decorated in blue, greenish and yellow spots, it’s a signal all is well in chameleon land and she’s a tiny, happy reptile. But if she starts to get some brown or black colors, Girl George is feeling a little off her game.

“Her color changing is more related to her mood,” Callen-Ward said. “Just like we have bad days, she has bad days. There might be something that startled her. It’s her way to show she didn’t like that.”

Who is this petite darling?

Girl George is a charmer. A confident, personable gal who’s always willing to come down from her perch to take insects from keepers and strangers via fingers or tongs, depending on said guest’s tolerance for wiggly creatures. She’s observant and dexterous, even in her older age — female chameleons have a life expectancy of 4 to 6. Don’t worry, though, this lady is still feeling sprightly.

And she’s totally fine with being alone: “They prefer their solo lifestyle,” Callen-Ward said.

“She is 100% happy having the whole enclosure to herself.”

‘Karma Chameleon?’

Yes, you musical aficionado. Girl George is named after the popular ’80s rock band Boy George and its 1983 hit, “Karma Chameleon.” Only Girl George was first Boy George. It’s challenging to sex a chameleon, but zoo staff came to the gender-changing conclusion due to her size and crest, which are both much smaller than male chameleons.

Let’s talk tongue

Ready for this? Girl George’s tongue is almost twice as long as her body, tail included. It fits in her mouth like a fruit roll-up. She’s able to control how far to extend it and she’s got great aim — no matter how far away that bug is, it will be hers. And what’s more, the end of her tongue is like a suction cup — about 400 times stickier than human saliva.

What does she munch on?

All bugs, all the time. She likes cockroaches, but if given a choice she’d take a juicy, green hornworm, a special treat. Keepers hand-feed her three times a week so they can keep track of what she eats. Those meals look like: 10 live crickets, five live roaches and some amount of mealworms, what Callen-Ward calls french fries, or comfort food, for reptiles.

“Her metabolism is adapted to the fact that out in the wild they might not have a readily available food source,” Callen-Ward said. “We want to mimic that here so she stays a healthy weight.”

A fun fact: If the size of a bug matches the space between their eyes, it’s a good fit for them to crunch. Also, her aim with that tongue decreases the fuller she gets.

Brainiac: Yes or no?

Because she’s small, some might take that to mean she doesn’t have the same smarts as a larger animal. False. Girl George can discern zookeepers from regular guests thanks to their cornflower-blue collared shirts.

“When I first came over, she saw me at the door and started making a beeline down to the front,” Callen-Ward said, “like what do you have for me? What are we going to do? She’s quite intelligent.”

Contact the writer: 636-0270