My new Jacksons.

Hello everybody. I kept chameleons several years ago but got out of it for a while. I had mostly veileds before. Last week I purchased a male Jackson's at a local store and went back today to get the female they had too. They said they came in as Tanzanian Jackson's. They are both pretty small as you can see. The guy at the store said the female looked like she could be pregnant but she is still pretty small so he didn't think she was old enough to be. I have done some reasearch and noticed some of the subspecies are smaller. Does anyone have any guesses as to what type of Jackson's they may be? The male gets a light blueish hue on his side sometimes.

Thanks,
Michael

your boy does look small! is he yellow around the horns in real life?

congratulations on your chams

By your description (small size, imported from Tanzania not Hawaii) I'd guess the Dwarf Jackson's or Chamaeleo trioceros jacksonii merumontanus.

Good luck with your new endeavor in chameleons. You picked a neat species to work with and I hope your girl is gravid. (Tis the season 'n all) Keep us posted on their progress.

Cheers!
Trace

http://adcham.com/html/taxonomy/species/chjacksoniimeru.html

Here is a link

good luck

Thanks guys, I think you have the right ID. I looked at some pictures and he does look like a merumontanus to me too. I was pretty sure he was something different than a regular Jackson's. I haven't seen many but I have seen a few. Most of them aren't as colorful and are larger. Mine actually isn't being all that colorful in the picture. I'll try and get a better one when he does color up. I am really glad it is a smaller species. I like the size they are now.

I have the same species I beleive, I just picked him up not to long ago. I was told mine was a normal Jackson's. But everyone on here told me he was a dwarf.

How can I tell for sure if the female is pregnant? If so is there any signs when she is ready to have babies? I want to be prepaired with food, enclosure, etc. but I don't want to get anything for the babies to eat and have the food grow up or die before hand.

Are you keeping the pair together? If so, you will want to make or buy a separate cage for the female as they are quite intolerant of the male when gravid. That said, if she doesn't physically look gravid (plump, heavy bodied, tennis ball with feet) you could try showing her the male to see what she does. Gaping, hissing, dark colours indicate she is gravid, or certainly not receptive to his advances. Considering the pair recently arrived from Tanzania, it's best to let them settle into living in captivity first, before any breeding is attempted. They are stressed out enough from the trip over, then living in a pet store, then moving to your house etc. Getting them healthy and acclimated is your first priority.

Gestation for most montane chameleons is 5 - 10 months but almost all of my live bearing chameleons give birth around the 6 month mark. Obviously you don't know if or when she was bred, but I wouldn't worry too much about accumulating tiny feeders now. Use your judgement on that, when she starts getting huge, order a few fruit fly containers and start culturing them. It's not to hard to keep FF's going long term. Perhaps start thinking about baby cages though. I've found rearing each baby separately to be more successful, than done in a group. Baby cages need not be fancy... kritter keepers, rubbermaids, even small screened (12x12x12 for example) cages will work. Consider any montane babies will need super high humidity (I CAN NOT stress that enough) and access to UV to live and grow.

Good luck!
Trace

I do have them together at the moment. I know they should be seperate but at the time I was focused on just getting an adequate enclosure built. I thought that most chameleons need to be seperate but also read that a pair of these could be housed together if the cage was large. They don't really seem to pay much attention to each other but I can build another cage or posssibly put a devider in this one. I built the cage pretty large so it could be sectioned off if need be. She does look a little plump but not huge. I will wait and see if she keeps getting bigger before worrying about it then.

These guys are really cute! I love Jacksons! I will probably end up buying a pair at some point. Waiting to see what will be at the San Diego Cal. show in June!

So do you guys think I should seperate them? They really aren't eating as much as they should but hopefully it is because they haven't settled in yet.

Seperate them.

This morning I ordered two cages from BlueBeastReptiles. I decided I liked them better than the one I built so I figured I would put the male in one too. Unfortunately I got home today early from work and the male was sitting on the bottom. I went to pick him up and he started flailing around and in 5 min. he was dead. He looked fine this morning and even ate a cricket while I was watching him. I'm not sure what happened since he hasn't been showing any sign of illness.

So sorry for your loss
If you feel up to it, you can do a necropsy to find out what exactly cause your chameleon to die.

here's the link:
http://www.chameleonnews.com/?page=article&id=3

Thanks, I may do that. I sent an e-mail to the store where I got him to see if there was any kind of guarantee first. Don't think so but figured I would check. I really would like to know what happened. Thank you for that link.

i too am so sorry that your male died. very sad.

but, i want to caution you about the female. i had a female who looked healthy - in fact i was feeling rather proud that i was doing such a great job when lo and behold she gave birth to 10 babies. i had no idea she was pregnant; neither did the person who sold her to me. so beware! Even now, when i look back at pictures of her she really doesn't look pregnant - just healthy

I cut him open and the back end was all black. I don't think I cut into the intestens but I guess I could have. I didn't see any worms of any kind and everthing looked normal besides the dark coloring. It looked nothing like the colors in the pictures on that website.

I send you 2 PMs.

Replied Dodolah.

Here is the picture if anyone has an idea.

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I do have a little good news regarding the female. She ate from my hands today.