Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just recently lost my female veiled chameleon to egg binding even with vet intervention. However the male who lives in the same room now is acting very strangly. He was perfectly healthy to this point but all of the sudden he does not move much and last night I found him sitting in the pot of a plant and very cold. His colors went from yellow and turcois to an olive green and brown. I put a warm towel around him last night to try to warm him up and noticed his tail was just dangling. Do you think he sensed the loss of his parter or do you think it is something else. While holding him in the warm towel he would once in a while clench all his hands and shake or convulse and be all puffed up. I do not know if this voluntery or involuntary. Any one ever experience, it was as if he had tenus or something. Any help would be appreciated. Might I as he was fine two days ago and he does not appear to be dehydrated at all.

Because there is lack of scientific evidence, this can only be pure speculation from anecdotal oberservations of long-term keepers. I would say pining over a lost mate is doubtful in chameleons, because they are normally by choice very solitary animals (meaning, you don't see packs of them hanging out together in their native habitats year-round). And, if you've ever tried introducing chameleons together that are not in sexual receptivity, it is pretty obvious they in general *do not* like having another chameleon close by, even across the room or a large back yard, they get pretty upset just by the mere *sight* of another cham.

More importantly, the description you're giving of your male's current condition sounds alarmingly like hypocalcemic tetany, which is generalized rigidity of the body's muscles because of a dangerous lack of calcium. Low calcium levels can also cause tremors of the large muscles. It is impossible to diagnose a problem over this forum, but I would advise a trip to the vet ASAP to evaluate the described paralysis and shaking. It could be hypocalcemic MBD, or it could be anything, but it doesn't sound normal!

Be sure to evaluate your husbandry practices and set-up (age of UV bulbs, age of supplements, gutload formulas, etc) with your vet and/or experts found on this forum and elsewhere. Everyone has lost a cham or two for unexplained reasons despite the very best of care, but if you've lost a female recently to egg-binding and your male does turn out to be hypocalcemic as well, check over your set-up with a fine-toothed comb to make sure something is not amiss.

~Kerry

Before I begin, I know this is pure speculation, but it does seem, at least to me, that they do have some sense of loss when it comes to partners, or in otherwords, chameleons, in my opinion, can possibly bond with other chameleons.

I have two examples for this. Currently I am caring for a science teacher two jackson chameleons. Originally there were three, 2 males on female. The largest male got an eye infection and was lying on the floor. The female, which was a nice green color seemed to hover around him, and stay next to him. Unfortunately the male passed away two days after. The very next day, the female turned a speckled brown color (i thought the science teacher bought another chameleon), and she is like this to this very day. She has not turned green ever since, I swear. Strange no?

Also, with my own lovelies(male and femail veiled), they get along fine with each other. They crawl over each other and not even blink an eye. However when another chameleon, male or female enters the cage, BOTH get defensive and posture and try to attack, even. Yet after all the hubaloo, they dont touch each other. No posturing, nothing. In other words, they recognize each other and have preferences (?).

what do you guys think?

SOME more socially tolerant cham species can be found in loose groups in wild habitat (but we're talking a spaced group of bushes or trees, not the usual captive cage situation), often spaced around a dominant male. Melleri can be kept in a loose 1-male group in a very large greenhouse for example. I have heard of veileds free ranged in trees an indoor pool room with 1 dominant male and female. It could be that the females in this group had accepted the male as the local dominant, and their pecking order was upset when he died. The females then had to re-arrange themselves in terms of dominance. And, how do chams advertise their status? by coloration and markings. This is not to say we can start keeping all chams in groups, but that some species have been, including jax, melleri and some fischeri.

This cham is really ill, and has been for some time. Like birds and many other animals chams are extrememly good at hiding symptoms of illness until they simply don't have the energy or ability to fake health any longer. It leads a keeper to believe their cham was "fine yesterday". Usually not the case. In the wild, an animal that shows symptoms of ill health is more likely to be picked out and pursued by a predator. So, they develop extremely fine abilities to appear strong. When a cham loses "control" of their skin coloration or when odd colors show in odd parts of the body the cham is often close to death. The clutching and muscle tremors do sound like advanced MBD, but there could be other problems on top of this. There may well be a connection to the death of your female too...the same problems showing up in egg binding and death. You need a vet ASAP, but it might be too late to help. In the mean time, a detailed description of your setup, lighting, temps, humidity, gutloading and supplementation, everything you can think of will help us help you. It might not save this cham, but at least any you keep in future hopefully won't end up the same way. So sorry for your loss, and I wish we could help you more!