Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can you cross a veiled with a panther??? Has this ever been attempted?? What would the offspring look like? And also does a female or male veiled grow and mature faster??
Thanks for the answers in advance.

Uhm, no. You can't. Chameleons really don't like their own species, they barely tolerate each other long enough to mate; they certainly won't take kindly to the sight of some chameleon of a different species. Veileds are know for being the most aggressive species, and male or female, would probably attack or get way too stressed out if you tried to introduce a panther with intent of breeding. Please don't try.

Even if they mated, which is highly unlikely, there's no saying that the eggs would be fertile. And if you think about it in the sense they way people breed horses and donkeys to get mules; the mules are sterile. Can't reproduce. What would be the point of crossing a Panther with a Veiled then?

As for your other question, generally females become sexually mature at 4-6 months, and males around 6 months. Though if you are going to breed two veilds, its best to wait a little longer for them to be comfortable and setteled where they live before trying to mate them. It can be hard to get them to warm up to eachother.

I understand it was just a curious question, don't take my reply the wrong way, okay?

I am in no way recommending that you mate the two species...just my opinion...I like to see the species remain pure and let nature decide which species should meet and interbreed.

I'm not a scientist so I don't know all the answers to this.

I have heard of one species of chameleon trying to mate and even of ones that did mate with another species. Of course, nothing came of it. I'm sure that its a case of mistaken identity....the female chameleon didn't show the appropriate non-receptive colors so the male mistakenly thought the female was "something" to mate with.

Here's a site where some answers as to why it doesn't work are given...
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/jun2000/961007568.Ge.r.html
""Species" is technically defined in the animal kingdom based on the ability of organisms to mate (herein defined as fertilization between the sperm and egg) and produce viable fertile offspring together. This idea of reproductive isolation is really the basis for defining a species. Even in rare cases where extremely similar members of different species (but like genus) can mate and have offspring - the hybrid offspring are sterile and therefore cannot propagate (e.g. donkeys and horses begetting sterile mules).
There are several obstacles that would interfere with crossing
species let alone organisms from a different genus. First, physical differences called mating barriers would have to be overcome. These barriers could be as significant as physical size or as fundamental as anatomical incompatibilities. Also to be considered are differently evolved states of breeding behavior between the two species that might make them incompatible. If such barriers were overcome and copulation where to occur then other mechanisms would become problematic. Special molecules called receptors on the surface of the sperm and egg of the
two species would probably be so vitally different that they could not properly join for fertilization to take place. If fertilization were somehow to continue then genetic dissimilarity would stop things during reproductive division. For example, even though chimpanzees are primates and are 99% genetically similar to humans in both coding and non-coding regions (possibly our closest animal match) - they have 24 pair of chromosomes and humans only have 23 pair. This difference in number of
chromosomes would make normal cell division impossible during meiosis."

Another site (not chameleons)...
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19025564.200-hybrids-when-two-species-become-three.html

Crappie fish...
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/article/article_read.asp?aid=154870&sid=99&htl=/column/column_feature.asp?sid=99

Hope this helps.

Nope. Even some panther locales don't seem to be able to produce offspring if crossed with others. More and more populations of chams are isolated from each other due to habitat loss (agriculture or development creates barriers to animal movement especially for species that don't move long distances anyway), and gradually the genetic makeup of these populations starts to drift apart as well. Over time they become different enough so that they either don't recognize potential mates by behavior or appearance, or their gene sequences just don't match up well. Because of its range the veiled has been separated from most other species for a really long time probably.