Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have had my pygmy cham for over a year and it has happily lived with out a problem. well as i was preparing to leave on a business trip it went to toss in some food and it was dead.it no problem i got it as an adult and had no clue as how close to the end of its life span it was. so i remove him from the tank and told my wife i would empty the tank when i returned. well here's the mystery when i return we proceeded to clean the tank out. my wife decided that she was gonna save one of the plants that was planted in there and toss the rest. so i started pulling out plants and placing to the side when i pulled the ficus i looked at it cause it had grown funny in the pygmy environment when i notice something. it was i tiny pygmy on stem . i shouted out cause i could not believe it. it measures 1cm long i placed it in a fresh tank. but how could this happen when there was no mate, i am assuming the this species of pygmy is capable of holding viable sperm for very long periods of time.

I'm interested to hear about this too! You had her for a year alone? That is crazy. I guess that does mean that they can retain sperm for some time...who would have thought, though? Thank goodness you didn't throw that baby away...is there only one? I'd go through that enclosure with a fine tooth comb to see if there are any others...maybe there are more and they didn't make it. Wonder if you can find the nest site and see if there are more that didn't hatch or see how many did hatch. Are you all finished going through it or did you stop when you saw the baby?

Can you post pic's of this little miracle baby? LOL!

Take care!
Kristen

Hi-

Yes I would say it came from retained sperm. You may want to look closely for any others that may be hiding, and also look for other eggs in the soil. You don't know when she laid them so you never know what you may find to your surprise. Good luck!
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John @ Chameleon Paradise
1.1 Ambilobe Panthers
1.1 Nosy Be Panthers
1.1 Sambava Panthers
1.2 Rhampholeon uluguruensis

I knew they could retain sperm, but I didn't know for THAT long!

there turned out to be two babies. i classified the soil with a fine creen and found no more eggs but i dont think pygmies lay large clutches. after i wrote the email my wife went through all everything the was in the tank and found on more. my prognosis is one will definately make the runt i doubt. thats nature. i'll try to get around to taking picures.