Chameleon died and came back to life :(

Okay here is the situation. We bought our noisy be chameleon who is about 2 months old. After about a week he was drinking water one day then walked to the bottom of the cage and died. Well at least he looked like he was dead. His eyes were closed and he was not moving. His color also changed to a dark color, and he was stiff. After about 10 minutes or so he slowly came back to life. His eyes opened and he began to move and walk. We called up the breeder thinking he was sick and she let us exchange him for another one. We have now had our new one a week and today when we came home we observed the same thing. He drank some water then went down to the bottom and mysteriously died. After about 10 minutes he came back to life and seems to be fine. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? Does anyone have any clue or suggestions. I love him so much and do not want anything to happen. I would truly appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks so much. We have the UVB light on during the day along with a basking light. During the night we use a 40 watt heat bulb. We feed him pinhead crickets dusted with calcium supplement. And we have a water dripper. If anyone knows what might be going on please let me know.

well not positive on this but i think i may have read somewhere on this forum or another about a similar incident. i think they have ability to play dead. im not 100% but i think i heard this somewhere. i would get more responses to see. but i think he is just playing dead.

Thats crazy i wanna know whats goin on to.

i wish i knew what happened.. cant wait for more replies!

That's pretty crazy. I'd love to know what's happening here as well.

Is the water cold?

What is your set up like (i.e. lighting, temperature, feeding)?

Yes, What is the details of your set up and husbandry? That way we can pin point what is going on. If everything is fine, I wonder if the chameleons were inbred and now they have some defects?

We use a UVB light during the day along with a basking light. On night time we use a 40 watt heat bulb. We feed him crickets lightly dusted with calcium supplement and we have a water dripper for him. We have a few branches with leaves so he can climb up and down the cage. This is our set up. If you can help sugget anything it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.

What about the water?

Is it well water? City? Purified, non-purified, etc?

There is a keeper on this forum that had problems with the city water she was giving to her chameleons.. she is from an area with awful water. Her chams started having major problems, and she finally discovered it was the water.

Since both chams had problems after drinking water, I would start by moving to bottled for the time being. There are filters, etc. you can buy to use, but I am not familiar with them since I use well water.

Another thought is the leaves you are using. It sounds like they are artificial.. is that the case? Have they been cleaned well?

I would look for something in the environment.. something to do with the water or the surface the chameleon is drinking off of.

Heika

Could it have been that the temperature was to cold or chilly and the animal's body shut down? Maybe it started to warm up after a bit, and his body started back up??


I cant wait to see a possible correct answer on this one too!

Thanks,
Jake

Very strange indeed, but thought I'd let you know that the heast lamp at night is not necessary. Pardalis can safely take night drops to 65 degrees. Hope you figure out what's going on.

yumyum6931 said:

Okay here is the situation. We bought our noisy be chameleon who is about 2 months old. After about a week he was drinking water one day then walked to the bottom of the cage and died. Well at least he looked like he was dead. His eyes were closed and he was not moving. His color also changed to a dark color, and he was stiff. After about 10 minutes or so he slowly came back to life.

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How was he drinking water? I'm assuming it wasn't your water dripper, because you're sorta mentioning that separately. What temperature of water did you use?

Also, How much time passed between when he drank, and when he started down to the bottom of the cage, and then "died"?

Wierd situation you got there.

Steve

Interesting. About a month ago I was misting my female veiled-she is a great drinker. No changes in what I was doing. I was using warm water and a light mist. All of a sudden she went all spotty, and then dark, and then almost fell off of her branch. She was leaning on the side of her cage. I picked her up-no resistance-which is strange because she is mean as anything, and took her outside where it was warm. After a few minutes she revived and was normal after that. Never figured it out.

ok...im not a chameleon expert but the only thing that makes any sense at all is that it was playing dead

more wild theories

where is it drinking from?
is the plant "new" from the nursery?
it may have some poison residue on it.

Yes chams can play dead
I've had young ones do down and "turn off" before
I chalked it up to their being young and just out of the egg.

but a real dead baby cham is hard to mistake.

im very sorry for your loss it is hard losing a pet. thats what i fear most about my cham is losing her. but when u figure out why cham died plz let me know

pedro92 said:

im very sorry for your loss it is hard losing a pet. thats what i fear most about my cham is losing her. but when u figure out why cham died plz let me know

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heh, clearly you didnt read what the post was all about.

Im banking on the cold water theory as well myself. Excited to hear what you find out!

I buy the gallon drinking water jugs from the grocery store. They are only a buck and last for a while. I may just be overly cautious but its a small price to pay considering what I pay for stupid silkies! lol