Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 6 month old male panther and he is really aggressive, I've had him since he was about 3 months old and I've never been able to hold him other than when I first put him in his cage.

Anytime I stick my hand anywhere near him he eaither runs away as fast as he can or gapes at me and will try to bite if I get too close. This has made cleaning his cage difficult to say the least, even putting in food is a challenge. I'm worried what this will be like when he gets to be full grown. Even when I open the door to the room I keep him in he usually scurries off and hides.

The living conditions he has are excellent, wish I lived so well, so it can't be anything to do with husbandry. He's in excellent health, eats well and is very active....maybe he's just a mean little bastard. I'm wondering if anyone has come across this problem and found a way to make a cham more tolerant of people, is it possible to train a cham?

If anyone has any suggestions or info they could give me I would really appreciate it.

From my personal experience with veileds, an even more aggresive species than panthers, the chams (especially males ), like humans, will go though an "adolescant" period. My adult male veiled was decently nice, but still got quite angry at me often, as a baby. At about or 7 months, he wouldnt even let me feed him! I would have to throw the crickets in! A few months later, maybe three or four, he calmed down quite a bit. He is still a little bastard, but now hand feeds and doesnt mind my hands in his enclosure as much.

Until he's 9-11 months (eek 911) old, I would say try hand feeding everything if he'll accept it. Keep yourself around him, unelss it stresses him out. Remember, he is much more scared of you than you should be of him!

Good luck!