I have a new 6 month Helmeted Iguana that has become unresponsive. I purchase him from a local privet pet store; I viewed him for about 1 week in the store before I decided to purchase him. He appeared to be healthy, active, and eating, he even ate the first night I had him. How ever the morning after a brought him home I found him lying on a rock motion less and none responsive (I thought he was dead). Since then he has been sluggish and for the most part non responsive. The temperature in the 55gal aquarium is about 90 on one end and 75 on the other. I have tank carpeting for a sub strait and wood climbing branches that extend up to his basking light. The UV is provided by a twin ballast fluorescent fixture with 2 18” reptiglo 5.0 bulbs. We are now into our third day, is this a normal adaptation or did he become sick overnight?
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New Helmeted Iguana (AKA Forest Chameleon) problems
Replies (5)
Hi, helmeted iguana have a defense mechanism, they look life-less or will play dead if they feel threatened.
So my guess is he's just stressed and scared, being in a new envirornment.
Also what is your humidity like? These guys like plants and branches, to climb, a bowl of water in the tank, and need to be misted.
Hope everything turns out okay, let us know 
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PHEve / Eve
which someone would have told us that when we rescued a mountain horned dragon! It scared us every time we looked in on it for the first month... I had even worked on a speech to my wife about how it had been sick and she really tried to bring it back to health but that it doesn't always happen... I was half way through it holding the little thing when it perked right up, jumped onto my wife and sat down on her head! Instead of her being happy I got yelled at for playing a mean joke on her... a husband can never win!
They play dead alright, really, really well!
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Bryan, Atlanta GA
1-0-0 Rescued Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Rescued Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Rescued Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
0-0-1 Rescued Non-Alpha Green Iguana - Bud
1-1-0 Rescued Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-0-1 Rescued Dieting Panda Hamster - Mr. Fluffy
0-1-0 Rescued Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids
LOL Bryan, you right. The guy NEVER wins. Glad the little rascal was OK though.
Quig
Fergot to add, the only thing I ever had that played dead was a hog nosed snake. Wild caught are really fun for a while 
Quig
