URGENT! My Chameleon is turning BLACK!

Hello! I would really like a speedy reply to this as its causing me and my girlfriend extreme stress! My chameleon is slowly developing more and more black spots across his body/spine and I really need to know whats up with him! I'll provide the information required below to see if you can help.

Your Chameleon - Panther Chameleon.
Age - 2 years old.
Sex - Male.
Handling - Once every two days or so.
Feeding - Gut loaded crickets and meat worms.
Supplements - Nutrobal from Vetark Professional.
Watering - Spray misting 3 times a day.
Fecal Description - Feces seem fine.
History - No history of such a thing happening, no ailments or injuries.


All the patches you can see on his body above are either extremely dark or just black. Sorry for the bad camera.



THANK YOU IN ADVANCE TO ANYONE WHO CAN HELP!

What are your temps like? In the second picture, his spikes aren't normally that color? It's odd that these 'black spots' are only where the stripes are. What happened to the spikes behind his neck?

Whats the lighting and heat situation? There is some edema going on in the back leg also. Need more info.

pssh said:

It's odd that these 'black spots' are only where the stripes are.

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I thought that too, Those stripes used to be a vibrant red, and now there just turning to this black colour.

To give a better explanation of whats happened before the change.. We moved Pedro from a smaller enclosure to this bigger one and about 2 months after that, that was when the changes started happening. We keep him at the guideline temperatures, his basking area is around 85ºF and the rest of the enclosure is kept at around 75ºF.

As for the white spines on his back, again I have no clue. They appeared around a year ago and have just stuck ever since.

P.S. Thank you for the speedy replies!

Do you have UVB lighting on him? He is very faded for a male Panther. Nutrobal is a multivitamin supplement if I am not mistaken-and you are oversupplementing him with that. Do you have a calcium supplement that you use?

Julirs said:

Do you have UVB lighting on him? He is very faded for a male Panther. Nutrobal is a multivitamin supplement if I am not mistaken-and you are oversupplementing him with that. Do you have a calcium supplement that you use?

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I realise hes very faded for a male panther hence all the worries Yes we have UVB lighting on him and I assumed that Nutrobal was the calcium supplement as well?

"Nutrobal - a high-calcium balancer and multivitamin/mineral supplement" - Taken from the label.

I wouldnt say we are oversupplementing him, just a light dusting on his food is what we usually give him.

to show a comparison, this was his colour just over 2 months ago.

Wow-I will be honest-I have never seen one fade out like that. Is he getting ready to shed? Does he normally get that faded when he is about to shed? We do not have Nutrobal over here-but what I hear from over the sea there is that people use a Calcium dust called Calypso in addition to the Nutrobal. Oversupplementing can certainly cause some issues. I would have to say a good Reptile Vet visit is in order to look at his skin, and possibly do some blood work. In the mean time-do you know the brand of the UVB light?-Do you change it out every 6 months? Do you have a picture of his cage?

nutribal is what i use once a week it is calcium powder with extras and D3, clacium powder on its own should be used as a daily/everyother day type dusting

Honestly i've no experience with cham yet, but i'm doing a lot of researh cause i'm planning to buy a jaksonii soon. I've read your post this morning and while doing some reading i've found this http://chamworld.blogspot.com/2008/01/health-chapter-f-burn.html on an other post https://www.chameleonforums.com/am-i-harming-my-chameleon-please-help-39170/ they are talking about black or red spot on the skin due to uvb over exposure. Go to the first link and go down the page after the heat burn. I'm just hoping that this will help you and your cham.

I don't know about anyone else, but in the first picture, his eye concerns me as well. Doesn't it almost look swollen shut compared to the picture from about 2 months ago?? The close up pictures of the spikes on his back almost look like he got burned at some point and they just never healed properly.

Have his eating habits changed at all? How often do you supplement (I know someone mentioned over supplementing can be bad, figured I'd ask about your schedule). Also, I noticed you don't have a drip system for him to drink from. I know our panther won't drink from the misted water often at all. He prefers water that is constantly dripping, which we do 2-3 times a day (definitely after eating) on top of misting a few times a day. What is his urate like? Is it white?

Why are some of the points of his crest on his back near his neck white? Did he have a burn or a fungal infection. Those dots could be fungal....you need a vet to tell you for sure.

Do you leave excess crickets in his enclosure? it looks like the colored skin was either eaten right off the sines or that they are infected somehow. Normally they are pointed and those look to be swollen and round at the top. As for the supplementing most people supplement with plain calcium at every other feeding and calcium with d3 1 or 2 times a month tops and use a multivitamin 1 time a month. Generally the cham should be getting most of the nutrients it needs from the gutload of its feeders and the multivitamin is just in case it is not and the D# is just incase the UVB bulb isn't working well. How old is your UVB bulb. they generally stop producing the proper amount of UVB after 6 months, give or take a month or two. I would for sure get him to a vet as he was a very beautiful chameleon and now looks somewhat off. I do believe he is about to shed, however he still should not have swollen, white spines or that black fungus like stuff in between some of them. I hope he is not really sick and that is is just something minor. Like I said I really think he is about to shed and after that I believe he will be a nice blue with very dark red stripes. They sometimes develop different colors as they age but usually not this dramatically if thats all this is. Good luck.


Justin

We leave no excess crickets in his enclosure no.

We supplement once a day and his urate is white yes.

Apparently according to my girlfriend he has burnt himself in the past which we swiftly corrected and made safe.

As for the eye thing, I think thats just how the initial picture is taken because he was moving around a bit and the eye section blurred when I took the pic xD

Our UVB light is only around 2-3 months old, but maybe its defective? I'll have a check and make sure.

Im not sure its about him shedding or not to be honest, since hes shed before and after the black areas appeared and they've persisted throughout. Oddly enough last night he had NO black areas on his body for a while upon observation... and when Ive woken up this morning they are back...

I don't know about everyone else, but I've been told not to supplement every day because you can over supplement them. This is how we do it:
SUN - off
MON - Calcium
TUES - off
WED - Vitamin w/D3
THURS - Off
FRI - Calcium
SAT - off

We alternate Wednesdays with Vitamins w/D3 and Calcium w/D3. All the calcium days are without D3.

kinyonga said:

Why are some of the points of his crest on his back near his neck white? Did he have a burn or a fungal infection. Those dots could be fungal....you need a vet to tell you for sure.

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I have to agree with this comment. It seems to be fungal, but you MUST get to a vet ASAP! they are the only people that can help you at this point. Do you have a reputable vet in your area?

I've never seen an overall color shift like that before. Does the relative amount of black change with temp, sleeping or basking or is it constant? Was that "before" picture showing him fired up? What was his color when completely relaxed? One possible thing to look at is the color inside his mouth, or possibly on the pads of his feet. Has that changed along with the rest of him? It might help distinguish between a possible aging chromatophore shift and a systemic health problem that is resulting in dull fading.

Very weird!

Hes faded because the UVB is bad ! A few days in the sunlight will fix the fading !! This happend to me with a bad bulb !! but a week of sunlight fixed the prob. hope this helps The other probs need a vets attn.

jeffro said:

Hes faded because the UVB is bad ! A few days in the sunlight will fix the fading !! This happend to me with a bad bulb !! but a week of sunlight fixed the prob. hope this helps The other probs need a vets attn.

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Uhhhhhh........... wut?

Are you sure about that? Have you read the other posts in this thread?

jeffro said:

Hes faded because the UVB is bad ! A few days in the sunlight will fix the fading !! This happend to me with a bad bulb !! but a week of sunlight fixed the prob. hope this helps The other probs need a vets attn.

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Yeah. I disagree. It probably is fungal infection but the UVB is only 2-3 months. Its fine