Sorry I'm late to the party- had two trade shows in one weekend, friends from several states visiting, and an anniversary, so barely even saw this computer.

Yes, males initially display similarly to other males and females. It usually escalates and there is a "fork in the road". For another male, the escalated display includes more tail rolling and knocking, and charging. I have seen males both become white or become near-solid black to show submission/retreat. This can be confusing because a victorious male can whiten up, as well as yellow up (my Standard males would go the yellow++, Blues went whiter) but his posture is pretty distinct from that of a stick-hugging, retreating male. I think males who are in better health/younger retreat in darker/greener color, but could just be the few I've seen. It's different in confronting a female, receptive or otherwise. The male becomes more flirty, no gaping, rostrum pointed more down than up, placing himself between the losing male and the female, no charging, just inching up to rest a foot or chin on some bit of the female. Unless it's Dume, the Minute Man. Retreating females can also go near-solid black, so it is even MORE confusing.

Females will flick lobes in displays. Is the clicking you refer to an audible sound, as in the jaws clacking together from the force of the flicking lobes? Or is it something different? Was it the buzzing infrasonics?

I doubt size matters. It doesn't here, my currently breeding female is easily 25% larger than her mate. Pattern, postures, general display seems to matter.

I have never heard this locale theory before, but I have noticed that mature specimens can have enormous skulls. The skull of a male of 6 years is almost twice the width and length of a very large yearling male (which we could mistake for an adult). In that pic, She-Ra is exhibiting what appears to be male courtship color. The "male" is just being green, hard to say on that one. I don't know if melleri have different skulls from each locale, but if they hang out together calmly, they are probably compatible. Melleri are pretty direct about anything they won't tolerate in their sight.

In my experience, whenever I tried to use bee pollen, my melleri would get bilateral eye swellings and become listless. It stopped as soon as the pollen was no longer used. It seemed to be an allergic reaction. Although lacking firm medical evidence like bloodwork on all the animals affected, ranging in age from hatchlings to adults, I stay away from North American pollen in their gutload because it made my (and others') animals temporarily uncomfortable. I'd probably avoid the honey just because of this... plus, the full effect of sugars on chameleons is poorly studied, as mentioned in this thread. The other thing is that honey is an old horseman's remedy for hoof/cuticle infections, but it is used topically, like packed into a emptied abscess, not ingested. I don't quite understand how ingested honey would have the bacteria dying off as effectively as a topical application. Cham bones aren't open hooves, either, so topical is out of the question.

Not necessarily. If the osteomyelitis is fungal, antibiotics will have no effect but let the fungi prosper in the real estate evacuated by the bacteria. If the swelling continues to reduce, it is a good sign, but a follow-up X-ray is a great idea. Black on the skin can just be the soft tissue bruising/abrasion from the initial injury, I think that's what I'm looking at. Are there any swellings showing up on any other "open" parts of the skeleton, like toes on other feet, etc? It looks like his tarsals were injured, not his ankle... I might be looking at the black part only?

That's a really good question! In an X-ray, osteomyelitis makes the bone outline faded/invisible at the infection site(s). It kind of looks like someone took an eraser to the X-ray. Those erased bits do not regenerate, but I've heard that limb ligaments can draw up and the chameleon will sort of modify (I didn't own that melleri). With MBD, although the bone density would be low and the bones may look very pale or transparent, the outline would be crisp, and the edges of the break visible. The chances of it being MBD are quite low, as you haven't owned them very long, they are adults, and they have very recently been eating a naturally balanced diet in the wild. MBD in adult melleri is very rare; it's something you may see in growing CH/CB babies, usually linked with a Vit A problem. MBD isn't known to present with such specific external bruising, AFAIK.

Once more, I'm not a vet, just trying to remember stuff I've experienced with melleri over the years.

__________________
Kristina Francis
http://www.melleridiscovery.com/

"The human mind treats a new idea the same way the
body treats a strange protein; it rejects it."
- Peter B. Medawar
Nobel Prize-winning immunologist

Cristina ,thanks for the reply and sharing your experiences! I was just referring to Rambo clicking his head.
After gathering more information I don't think the honey would be a good idea.
I hope to get him into the vet sometime this week.
I finally have the short video uploaded along with some cage photos:
http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n...meleons017.flv

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~Liz~ Check out my site http://freewebs.com/lbesok
*2.3 Nosy Be *1.2.5 Ambilobe*2 Melleri .1 Beardie *.1 Leopard Gecko

i know that cage!!!lol

that is some weird stuff, rambo with his clicking.

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"up and coming herp porn director"

It ate my reply... Love that large cage! I would add leaf litter to soften the cage floor for falls. My big CB female just took a tumble the other day, it happens even to melleri raised in cages. Big food-chasing goofballs.

The duration of the lobe-flicking vid makes me think it's a male. The color it is displaying (green, white, yellow, with black spotting) looks more like a territorial shout than a courtship thing. Usually when they court, they drop the green or blue (except the cheek blush on Blues).

Great cage, keep up the god work!

__________________
Kristina Francis
http://www.melleridiscovery.com/

"The human mind treats a new idea the same way the
body treats a strange protein; it rejects it."
- Peter B. Medawar
Nobel Prize-winning immunologist