The Collaborative International Dictionary
Chromatophore \Chro"ma*to*phore`\, n. [Gr. ?, ?, color + fe`rein to bear.]
(Zo["o]l.) A contractile cell or vesicle containing liquid pigment and capable of changing its form or size, thus causing changes of color in the translucent skin of such animals as possess them. They are highly developed and numerous in the cephalopods.
(Bot.) One of the granules of protoplasm, which in mass give color to the part of the plant containing them.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. A pigment-bearing cell or structure found in certain fish, reptiles, cephalopods, and other animals.
Wikipedia
Chromatophores are largely responsible for generating skin and eye colour in ectothermic animals and are generated in the neural crest during embryonic development. Mature chromatophores are grouped into subclasses based on their colour (more properly " hue") under white light: xanthophores (yellow), erythrophores (red), iridophores ( reflective / iridescent), leucophores (white), melanophores (black/brown), and cyanophores (blue).
Some species can rapidly change colour through mechanisms that translocate pigment and reorient reflective plates within chromatophores. This process, often used as a type of camouflage, is called physiological colour change or metachrosis. Cephalopods such as the octopus have complex chromatophore organs controlled by muscles to achieve this, whereas vertebrates such as chameleons generate a similar effect by cell signalling. Such signals can be hormones or neurotransmitters and may be initiated by changes in mood, temperature, stress or visible changes in the local environment. Chromatophores are studied by scientists to understand human disease and as a tool in drug discovery.
In some forms of photosynthetic bacteria, a chromatophore is a coloured, membrane-associated vesicle used to perform photosynthesis.
Chromatophores contain bacteriochlorophyll pigments and carotenoids. In purple bacteria, such as Rhodospirillum rubrum, the light-harvesting proteins are intrinsic to the chromatophore membranes. However, in green sulfur bacteria, they are arranged in specialised antenna complexes called chlorosomes.
The word chromatophore may refer to:
- Chromatophore, a kind of pigmented cell or organ found in some animals.
- Chromatophore (bacteria), a vesicle associated with the cell membrane used to photosynthesize.
- In some organisms, chloroplasts may also be called chromatophores.
Usage examples of "chromatophore".
Giant squids swim by, moving in complex, stellate dances, hundreds of individuals at a time sharing information in the data-dense flickering of their chromatophores.
Chromatophores ignited within the flesh, and its color changed from maroon to a lighter, brighter red not a bloodred, for so permeated was its blood with hemocyanin that it was in fact green, but a red designed by Nature purely for intimidation.
Iridescent waves of color, of electric blue and intense yellow, rippled through its skin as it flashed chromatophores at the apprehensive and uncomprehending crew.
They communicated by varying the colored patterns of the chromatophores on their skins.
The water around it and below it was brightly lit, greenish, swirling with kraken whose full-spectrum chromatophore communications sent flickering rainbow flashes through the upper levels of the water.
Is the cephalopod mode of communication via chromatophore display something intrinsic to their neural anatomy?
The all-body depilator she gave a wide berth—the consequences of an accident with the controls could be too embarrassing for words—but the mirror wall by the sink had a full skin programmer that could talk to her chromatophores, so she spent an absorbing half hour reprogramming her makeup: night-dark eyeliner, blue lips, dead white skin, and glossy black hair.