Furcifer pardalis aka panther chameleon is a complex of forms of different level of mutual relationship. Some are genetically very close and represent jusg local populations, some are distinct at a level of different subspecies or even species.
The variability is well expressed in the color palettes of adult males when "fired up": the local forms...
Only few topics in Chamaeleoculture are so controversial such as the debates about UV. During my most recent expeditions to Africa and Arabia (incl. Socotra), I made many observations and measurements...
Chameleons do not tend to build permanent pairs. First, they mostly live too shortly so that it lack sense. Second, they tend to disperse in the environment homogeneously to utilize the natural resources.
Water is an essential chemical substance, life is dependent from. Water builds a substantial part of the lizard bodies (63-81%) and as such, the mechanisms keeping the most voluminous substance of their bodies in balance is vital for them.
A lot of confusion is spread over the cyberspace about where and how the Veiled chameleons live in fact. Even some quite reputable pages and sources are usually very inaccurate...
When young chameleon hatch or are born, a miracle happens...They often show an obsessive tendency to restlessly run for several hours...
The parietal eye, also known as a third eye or pineal eye, is a part of the epithalamus present in some animal species. The eye is photoreceptive with a wide spectrum of sensed wave lengths reaching from IR to UV and is associated with the pineal gland, regulating circadian and seasonal rhythmicity and hormone production for thermoregulation.
Chameleons are often called solitary.Absolute nonsense.They are animals with deep sense of "community" approach, they are highly social! They have complex mechanisms of intraspecific communication, they have their territorial behavior, they have rituals and modes and patterns etc etc.
Often, people ask questions about the white crystals around the nostrils...What are the myths and what is true?
Millions of years the mother Nature finetuned the process and in case of panthers, taught the females to lay their eggs in shallow, 5-7cm only deep holes in half shade and half sun, in light sandy soil. The eggs were incubated all together, exposed to diapause, circadian and seasonal temperature fluctuations little rain from time to time, bigger...
The primary reason often cited of increasing water intake through eating leaves (and other plant material) is doubtful, because the massive eating leaves happens in the rainy season, when there is enough rain water to drink. So, it makes no sense for them to eat leaves if they are anyway richly hydrated...In the dry season it is pointless to...
For chameleon breeders, the question of confirmed father of the offsprings is very important in the breeding projects. The complication is, the females can store sperm from previous matings... So, if you mate same female with more different males, from the moment it mates with the second one, you will never be sure who is the father of the young......
People assume, sibling mating happens often the wildBUTOPPOSITE IS TRUE!The argumentation of lowmobility in chameleons and high number of offsprings ismisleading and happens completely different way than most people assume.
The appearance of male-like females and female-like males (transsexual specimens) is a phenomenon which is quite rare and noone has ever got deeper insight, but it is very likely more frequent nowadays than we think, especially in the widespread captive bred species.
