Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I would like to catch some wild bugs for my chameleon, instead of just giving it crickets all the time. Is this a bad idea? What kind of bugs are good, and which ones should I look out for? Thanks for your help!

Feeding your chameleon wild insects is great. They call it Field Plankton. You could get like a butterfly net and run it through tall grass. Lady bugs, stink bugs stinging insects like bees and wasps are dangerous as well as fireflies. Insects like spiders, grasshoppers, flies, mantis's, and a variety of other insects are good. Lovebugs are not any good either. You would be suprised at how your chameleons might take one insect and reject another. My Veiled and Panthers love spiders and flies to vary from their normal diet. Hope this helps

there are a couple of other people on this forum that are better qualified to answer your question but i'll tell you what they've taught me...no bugs with "warning" colors like orange and black or is brightly colored....nothing with prickly hairs or spikes like alot of caterpillars...nothing that gives of a discharge in self defense...i'd also stay away from some spiders, my rule of thumb with them is if i'm afraid to touch it for fear of getting bit, then i don't give it to my cham...i also wouldn't feed wild caught flies.

here's what i have been giving him...green grasshoppers, daddy long legs, moths and some half moth/half dragonfly looking thing that i have to take a pic of to show lele

a varied diet is important..to me, a diet of just crickets isn't going to cut it for the long haul..there are soooo many insects available in petstores and online that you probably don't need to catch wild caught insects at all

I think feeding wild insects is very good...as long as the insects are not harmful nor have any pesticides.

I pretty much only feed grasshoppers, mantis, and cicadas to my panther chameleons. I know those are safe from a toxic standpoint, plus I only get mine from area's I know are pesticide free. Cicadas can be collected early in the morning when it's still kind of cool. They can be found low to the ground then.