What is the direction of light?

What is the direction of light, we should expose the chameleons to, in indoor cages?

The question is: what direction of sun rays are natural for a chameleon and what is the predominant direction of the light to which a chameleon is exposed to?

Most people jump here with a quick spontaneous answer: from above!

And it is NOT true.

The correct answer is actually: FROM THE SIDE.

In the morning and afternoon, the sun is NOT above the heads but in various angles, it shines from the side!

At noon, when the sun is above the head, the chameleons as a rule do not expose themselves to it, on contrary, they hide under leaves, which build a sort of umbrella above them, and, the light they see is actually comming from the SIDE again.

I am not advocating another concept than to put the three types of light (IR, UV, visible white) above the cage, it is for practical reason ok and is prooved by decades of practice that it works - explicitly in indoor caging.

It however does not exclude the possibility to have light sources which might shine from the side too…

I guess we will have to address it later in the chameleon husbandry, as the intensity of light diminishes with the square of the distance from the source, thus leaving all what is lower than 3-4ft without sufficient light (and lower than 1,5ft for UV), based on the light sources we can realistically use and where we can realistically place them.