Armed with a flashlight on a backroad in Florida, Hillary Dupont-Joyce is on the hunt. Her target is a master of disguise, but a flash of light can make it stick out among the dark trees.

She scans her light along a thicket. Suddenly, her trained eye spots the prize: a sleeping chameleon.

Dupont-Joyce is part of a community of “herpers”—reptile enthusiasts who catch non-native chameleons in the backyards and bayous of rural Florida, often adopting them.

During the day, chameleons are near-impossible to see. They “don’t exactly match any given background like the old Looney Tunes bit,” says Montreat College herpetologist Joshua Holbrook, but their ability to change color and contort their bodies to hide behind branches and