Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all, today some friends of my wife and i came up from Florida to us visit for the week. Since one of my friends loves reptiles, i showed her my new chameleon. She recognized my chameleon imediatley, and told me that she had encountered one like it while hiking in the everglades. I asked her if it was someones pet and she told me that it was either an escaped pet or a wild veiled. At first I didn't believe her when she mentioned "wild veiled" because i knew that veileds were native to Yemen, but then she told me that Veiled Chameleons are actually becoming a more common wild reptile in Southern Florida due to escaped specimens from importers and Pet Owners. i found it pretty interesting, and the topic got us into a big conversation about animals becoming wild due to escapes from imports. We did some research too (were a real band of Nerds), we also read somewhere about Jackson Chameleons being introduced to Hawaii over the past few years. i thought that the information was pretty wild and i thought i might share. But my question goes out to those Chameleon people in Florida, have any of you in Florida encountered a wild Veiled Chameleon before? or, does anyone know about interesting stories on introduced Chameleons? It seems like an interesting topic, and now I really want to go to Florida and see if I can find any Veileds.
Any info about this topic will be most appreciated
Thanx
-phibia5

I live in florida and have never seen a wild veiled. I dont doubt the real hardy ones could probably survive if they escaped though. It is true there are tons of wild jaxons in hawaii, suposidly excapies went crazy breeding, my friend in the army is stationed over there, says he see's them all the time.

I also know in the florida keys there are alot of wild iguannas... excapies as well...

thats just like in some northern state there are wild parrots everywhere, excapies as well.

its interesting to see how some animals can survive in different locations.
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From Sunny Florida
Jovana's kids listed below
1.0 Veileds
1.1 Ambanja Panther
1.1 Tamatave Panther

there is also colonies of veiled and jacksons in califonia and rumors of veiled now in hawaii with the jacksons

I also came across this information on a website with field guides for Florida. If I remember right it was a county in southern Fl. and the population of veileds wasn't large (yet). They were found in an area around an exotic pet importer, which probably means escapees.

The Jacksons in Hawaii have been there for several years (from what I have been told) also caused by escapees. Unfortunately the people of the Hawaian islands don't like the chams there very much.
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Thanks Dawn
1.0 Veiled (Moe)
0.1 Helmeted Iguana (Louie)
0.2 Southern Toads (Tiny and Bubba)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Joker)
3.1 Cats (Buffy, Spike, London, and Lilly)

I don't know if this was the Link you were refering to, but we found this link last night: http://wld.fwc.state.fl.us/critters/exotics/SpeciesNumberResults.asp?SPPNO=294

The site is based on introduced/exotic species of Florida. The veiled chameleon is included here, the site says that the chameleons were introduced to a county in Southern Flordida about 10 years ago. Something that i found interesting in the passage is when they talked about how 200 individual veileds of all ages and sizes were located in one area in Ft.Myers one year. The passage also says that the Chameleons have been adapting to Urban and Suburban Areas in Southern Florida near Ft.Mylers.

-phibia5

Hi,
I have seen on many sites that sell herps that they have Wild Caught specimens. I have seen it mostly with panthers, but I think I also saw veileds that were WC. Maybe it is just me, but wouldn't it be much easier and probably cheaper to just catch the chams in hawaii, florida and california,. THen sell them instead of harvesting the wild populations. Just wondering, Josh