Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought some of Rhampholeon brevicaudatus chameleons this weekend at the NARBC show. I pick out one female because she was gravid. I found the female in a shallow hole this mourning before meeting up with my family who was in town for breakfast. I found my gravid female dead in the corner. She had laid one egg. I waited an hour and dissected her to find seven more eggs in her. Three in a line to come out and four more near her lungs, she was egg bound pretty bad. I extracted the eggs and they look to be fine. How often do these eggs hatch?
Thanks,
JJuchems

I have never done this to a cham and dont think I ever could. But if luck is on your side, they should hatch in about 4-6 weeks at room temp.... BTW you might wanna start breeding crix or makein a fruitfly culture, as the babies are tiny.

I have successfully harvested eggs from freshly passed Brevs that incubated into healthy hatchlings; you should certainly try it, if you have the stomach for it. Eight eggs from one momma Brev is extraordinary, no wonder she was eggbound. One of my gravid Brevs died unexpectedly this summer (necropsy showed a foreign body lodged in her GI tract) and I was able to harvest the eggs, which hatched about 70 days later. Rham brev eggs are not fussy with incubation, as mine never fail to hatch just sitting in moist vermiculite on my topmost kitchen shelf. I even very unexpectedly found three fresh hatchling Brevs crawling around my adult tank this summer; I must've missed the eggs in the soil somehow! Good luck.

I am glad to hear this news that someone else has had good luck with doing this. I keep Poison Dart Frogs so I already have fruit Flies and Springtails. Here is a picture of the eggs. Sorry, the picture is not great. I will try and get a better one tomorrow. The mass is a group of four eggs that were near her lungs. I can not beleive she had 8 in her.
Later,
JJuchems

i too have bought a pregnant leaf chameleon from the very same expo and had the exact same thing happen.only i removed nine eggs from the dead body of my female.im going now to make sure none were laid in the cage.