Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have read many good things about this plant but ive also read that they secrete an eye infecting sap... that is dangerous.. Is this true???

Not sure if it causes infections, although I can see how it could. The sap is very sticky and delivers quite a "bite" when entering the eye! I say this threw personal experience. I kept a ficus (ooo bad word!) in my cham's enclosure for a couple years without incident. But....... a few weeks ago, I removed it to do some pruning as all the leaves were beginning to fall off. In the process I got some sap in my eye. It was extremely painful and the nasty effects lasted a few days. My eye was very red, puffy and my vision was blurry. Believe it or not, I actually got a headache ....not positive it was related........but.......not sure it wasn't either.
Not something I would wish on my worst enemy....

~~On a side note, my Socretes (2yr old male Veiled) has been diagnosed with inherent eye problems that were said to be incurable. Since the removal of the ficus, I have seen slight improvement............. (knocking on wood as I type!)

A ficus is a great tree for chams. and yes, it is possible for your cham to get an eye infection from the sap, but the odds that your cham will break a stem on the tree then rub his eye on it is slim to none. I have kept chameleons in ficus trees fom 5 years, and have never had a problem with it. Hope you don't either
Happy Chaming
Kaitlyn

A ficus is a great tree for chams. and yes, it is possible for your cham to get an eye infection from the sap, but the odds that your cham will break a stem on the tree then rub his eye on it is slim to none. I have kept chameleons in ficus trees fom 5 years, and have never had a problem with it. Hope you don't either
Happy Chaming
Kaitlyn

Hi-

Well the variegated ficus is one of my favorite trees. I prefer any variegated plant over the plain green. I have at least one ficus tree in most of my cages a long with other plants. I have not had any problems with the ficus tree sap irritating my chameleons eyes. For something like this to happen, the chameleon would have to rub its eye directly on a fresh drop of the sap. This is highly unlikely to happen, but is not out of the question. If you are worried about this, then use other plants in its place. Hope this helps!
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John @ Chameleon Paradise
1.1 Ambilobe Panthers
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1.2 Rhampholeon uluguruensis