Last week I observed Megana following Hercules around the free range in what appeared to be a stalking pattern. He would be resting or basking and she would approach from the other side of the range. He would see her approach and leave his perch by a different vine. She would see him do this and change vines to continue following him. He would go to a branch on the outer edges of the range and stay there. She would then settle down and roost in a spot that blocked his entrance into the range. He would sit there, away from the basking areas, cold, and that's where I would find him the next day. I observed this twice. Several times I have not been in there long enough during the day to observe their behavior, but I have found him out on a cold perimeter, sometimes cold, damp, and asleep. I got home this afternoon to find him in that condition. It was about 5PM so I let him be. The other day I placed him up by his basking area when I found him out in the perimeter.

Question: Is Megana driving him out of the range? Or is she approaching for friendly reasons, and Hercules is misinterpreting her motives (probably not- I assume that she has approached him when I was not around and made her motives clear)? At twice his size she is pretty intimidating. I think I'm feeding her enough. She's over 500g now. She gets 2 large and 2 medium dubias a day. But she also eats Hercules' food.

Should I intervene? Let them work this out? Separate them? On the plus side Hercules' color still looks good. He does eat. We weighed him and he has not lost any weight. I'm willing to let this go and see if they work it out.

I am hoping someone will tell me this is normal behavior. But, at face value, it appears that Megana is trying to take over the entire range for herself.

I am going out to the free range now to add another basking area to that outer perimeter.

What in the world is 500 grams?

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Julirs http://www.julirschameleons.com 2.2.50+ Veiled 1.1 Oustalet 1.2 Nosy Be 5.3.3 Pygmelions 1.0 Fischers 0.0.1 Mellers 0.1 Ambilobe 0.1 Side-Striped

Are these melleri your talking about?

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Yes, she's talking about melleri.

I have seen a female chase a male that was trying to court her. And she wouldn't just chase the male during the attempted courtship, but whenever she saw him. After a week of that I took the male out of the freerange for a few days and when I put him back in everything was ok again. This was in my old freerange where I didn't have visual barriers installed.

What I would try first in your case is put up a visual barrier in the free range with basking and misting spots at both sides. In my experience melleri (male or female) will stop chasing another (male or female) once the other one disappears out of view.
The divider doesn't have to really stop them from getting on eachothers side of the freerange, it's just to give them some privacy.

If the divider doesn't solve the problem you might have to separate them or increase the size of the freerange.

Also how big is the free range?

good luck,
Suzanne

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1.2.1 Ch. (T.) melleri, 1.2 Ch. (T.) jacksonii xantholophus
My work: www.gibbonsrock.com

Somehow my reply appeared twice. Sorry. Anyway, since I took up this space, I will load photos here. These are not recent photos.

Yes, these are our Meller's. Hercules weighs about 250g and Megana weighs about 510g.

Thank you, Suzanne, for your response. It is an "L" shape, 8ft long on the "long leg" by 4ft on the short leg of the "L". The plants are on 20" shelves, but the plants are large, with thick horizontal herp vines running through and across them, making the range several feet deep. When Megana was first placed in there with Hercules, I had green mesh visual dividers but they tore them down. It's funny, when this happened I forgot about the visual barriers, and why I had them in there in the first place. Now that you wrote, I remember reading about your setup, and placing them in mine because it worked for you. I will replace them this morning. I'll let you know if this works!

That should be plenty big enough for 2 - mine is only 5 ft longer and I have 4 mellere in there (and one, Dume, is almost as big as Megana!).
I've finally started to upgrade my crappy towel dividers with burlap ones that are held in place by wooden dowels attached to the 'lighting cage' at the top and the free range floor at the bottom. (for those having a hard time visualizing this whole lighting cage and free range floor crap; check out my article in the latest chameleonnews e-zine )

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1.2.1 Ch. (T.) melleri, 1.2 Ch. (T.) jacksonii xantholophus
My work: www.gibbonsrock.com

It is a great article. I would love to breed Megana with a beast like Dume. But Meller's aren't like panthers, one can't do quicky breeding loans. Hercules was adult when we got him, but quite small for a Meller's. He's the first one we got, and I had always read about them being large, but I thought to myself "he's really not that much larger than our largest Panther cham". Then Megana arrived, and I was so taken aback by her size and strength. I wonder, considering his size, if Megana will even allow him to mate with her. We will likely add to our group by-and-by. We have another room we can expand into.

My other three adults (2 CB and 1 WC) are all about Hercules' size, FWIW.

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1.2.1 Ch. (T.) melleri, 1.2 Ch. (T.) jacksonii xantholophus
My work: www.gibbonsrock.com

Oh, OK, so he's normal. I was afraid, after seeing Megana, that Herc was a runt. In most of my photos, you can't tell the size difference. Someday, when they are side-by-side, I'll get photos. His head could easily fit in her mouth. And, I think he knows it.