18mth adult ambilobe m or f ?

fluxlizard

Avid Member
Here is a strange one! I bought this girl at the end of 2013 as a small juvenile from a forum member. Sold as a female ambilobe.

This chameleon is built like a female- in person s/he is really wide abdominally like a female, never grew to male size, but is largish female sized. No evidence of hemipenes that I can see.

S/he does have well developed post-anal pores where you would expect to find them on some male pardalis(all? I haven't taken a survey- I need to check out my animals I guess, both male and female tomorrow. I've noticed them on pardalis long ago but haven't been looking in recent years until checking this guyril out) .

S/he also acts female. Gapes and rocks side to side in response to stimulus rather than nodding.

S/he behaves this way when a male or a female is introduced- has never been receptive to a male (until maybe this past week) and has never nodded at a female. But s/he has intensified coloration, gaped and rocked at both sexes.

The pics really don't show off the coloration. I have been busy and had a moment this morning so I snapped off a few pics quick to share. But sometimes the red/orange is very brilliant. Overall though, s/he is much more subdued in coloration than a male, but way more colorful than any other female I have seen.

This past week she may finally have submitted to breeding. I walked away when I saw s/he was not doing her usual gaping. The male s/he was with was not interested in fighting- he was courting and approached this chameleon slowly. I went away to do something else for 5 minutes and returned and the known male had mounted this animal, but I did not witness successful copulation. I left again for 15 or 20 minutes to take care of some chores with other lizards and when I returned they had broken up. I tried another breeding attempt a couple of days later. Prior to, I thought her /his coloring was a little different than before. The male s/he was placed with again this time was having a dud day- not interested. I guess I'll try again.

But what do you think- have I got a masculine feminine or a feminine masculine? I've never seen one quite like this. If it is female I'm very interested in whether any female offspring appear similar with the coloration....

All of these were taken within a few minutes, quite a bit of color variation in that time...

Here, just barely disturbed by camera. Kind of a good one to show lack of obvious hemipenes. On the other hand, it is sticking the chin out like a male here...

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Here, coloration has gone more orange/red

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Here, post-anal pores

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Here, slightly later coloration with stronger bars

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I guess I should have taken a pic from above so you all could see that this chameleon is a very wide-load abdominally like a female- never seen a male built like that.

After looking at the photos again- it sure looks like a male! But in 3d- it looks very much like a female! And behaves like one. Maybe it is just not dominant and is underdeveloped... Maybe I'll have to take a video to show the body shape and behavior. Often the color and pattern is more faded than seems to appear in these photos...
 
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Do you have any pictures of her younger / maybe when you first got her?

I must say the coloration screams male, but that tail base doesn't! Could he maybe not have dropped his hemipenes?

The nose also looks more female as well.

Here is one of my females who I and some people on the forum thought was a "he-she" until she finally laid some infertile eggs. She's fairly big, 125-135g depending on how well she eats.
 

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No I don't have earlier pictures unfortunately. One final thing though- all of last year and some of this year this animal had the tan coloration of a female- the only difference was a bit of red appeared around the eyes for several months, then this year we got these colorations like in the photos here.
 
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Just a little update

Just a little update-
Today I put this lizard in with my largest male (a different male than the previous) and copulation was successful. She behaved in a receptive manner and the male courted her immediately in spite of her interesting coloration.

So appears she's a female.

I'll be waiting for eggs to just give me a final confirmation.
Her colors did change a bit post-copulation, but I didn't get a photo taken.

I've never seen or heard of a female that looks like this, so it is interesting to me...
 
update

OK, so today she rejected the male and turned gravid coloration.

So I guess the breeding took.

New pic right after rejecting the male:

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The strong white lateral line with the bright yellow/orange portholes come off as reminiscent of flames and is unique in person compared to other gravid females at least that I have seen.

Her relaxed colors have changed as well. Orange body with green banding today. I should have taken photo before showing her to the male. Hopefully new coloration will remain so I can get a photo taken and up of it as well, as it is also interesting/very colorful.
 
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