Hi! The animal this concerns is an 8 month old Male Sambava Panther. I have had this animal for almost two months now but recently have noticed a change in both feeding behavior and activity levels. When I first got the cham he seemed very content with exploring the upper regions of his cage and did not travel often to the bottom, within the last week it seems that if he is not basking then he is roaming his cage, not just the top like when he first arrived but all over the place. I sometimes come into his room to find him on the bottom of the cage, but he quickly climbs back up to the top when i approach him. Also when i open the door to feed or clean, he often will "run" over, climb onto my arm, and make his way to the top of my head or between my sholder blades, leaving me walking around backwards trying to get him to climb up anything else i can find because im afraid he will try jumping to the floor. Is this likely a sighn of puberty? could he simply be searching for a female/defending his territory, or does this sound more like hes not happy with his enviroment? As for changes in food consumption, i rarely see him eat anymore. When he first arrived it took quite a bit of effort and variation for him to begin feeding regularly, but eventually he got used to crix, now he wont eat anything (while im around atleast) excepth wax worms that he will take right out of my hands, yet every 3 days or so he has a healty looking (often suprizingly large) bowel movement, so i am not to concerned with him not eating while i am around but wanted to include this observation in my post just to be thourough, i assume that he is eating while i am away. He is housed in a 48x24 screen cage whith an auto mister set 4 times a day for 4 mins at a time, has a large ficus tree,a smaller ficus, rubber plant,and branches. The entire chameleon room is heated to 75 F during the day and drops to about 68-72 at night, also water is constantly dripping via large dripper buckets. If anyone has had similar experiences with mood and hunger changes in their male chams please let me know. I just hope this is normal. Thanks for reading my long post,if there is any additional info you want want to know just post a response and i will respond. I will also be able to post pics in a few days if that will help.

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• Puberty and Behavior changes... - Chaman, Sun Dec 24 01:01:24 2006