We both know that you couldn’t resist busting out with the opening lines from Boy George’s hit single, right when you read the title? Anyway, moving on…

The Councillor for the Environment, amongst other departments, Luis Aragón, presented a new campaign to increase awareness and protection of chameleons, or Dragón Andaluz, as it is optimistically called in this part of Spain. The campaign slogan is Pon Un Camaleón en Tu Piel (Put A Chameleon on Your Skin). Not everybody likes the idea of having tap-dancing lizards anywhere near their body, so perhaps it was not the best choice of slogan but fear not!

The reasoning is that they want locals and visitors to have a chameleon tattoo in solidarity with this polychromatically indecisive reptile with Marty Feldman eyes. There are four chameleon-tattoo designs that are being handed out. Obviously, these aren’t real tattoos but rather press-on ones, or something along those lines.

The chameleon population is distributed in different areas of Almuñécar and La Herradura. They prefer fruit-tree plantations (avocado & custard apple) as well as carob trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees and almond ones. They also like shrubs and bushes such as the Arto (Maytenus senegalensis), retama (Spartium junceum or Spanish broom) and lechaina (Thymelaea hirsuta or shaggy sparrow-wort).

In Almuñécar you can come across them in Taramay and in La Herradura on Cerro Gordo. If you do come across one, you can phone 686 270 438 and give its precise location – don’t bother if it has joined the tread on your tyre.

 

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)