New Giant Meller's

We came home from the NY expo with a new addition to our family . Introducing Murray the Giant Meller's, even though we don't know the sex yet so we might be changing the name. He/she is only 6mo and already pretty big i want to get him on a scale but he's still a little stressed from his big move yesterday.














You can see in the pic he has a bent horn. Breeder said it was because he's been pushing against the glass tank he been keeping him in

Mr Wilson said:

We came home from the NY expo with a new addition to our family . Introducing Murray the Giant Meller's, even though we don't know the sex yet so we might be changing the name. He/she is only 6mo and already pretty big i want to get him on a scale but he's still a little stressed from his big move yesterday.

You can see in the pic he has a bent horn. Breeder said it was because he's been pushing against the glass tank he been keeping him in

Click to expand...

What a shame about the horn. "He" may lose it entirely. Who was the "breeder"? Almost all melleri are imports, not cbb. BTW, there is no such thing as a Giant Meller's. There is a single species T. melleri, and yeah, they are big!

Breeder? Sorry.. I don't want to sound mean but I doubt its CB. Looks a bit big for 6 months aswell. I have some juvies that have been in my care since November that are half that size. Good lookin animal though. Cheers!

Congratulations on your new guy. He is good looking even with the horn issue. I would agree he is most likely w/c. After he has time to fully acclimate I would have a fecal done to check for parasites, they are common in w/c mellers.

He is so cool, crooked horn and all! I love the purple inside the mouth too!

I was thinking that it could be w/c, I didn't get the chance to talk a lot w/ the vendor because their stand had about 30 people at it, and the w/c vs. c/b question completely slipped my mind. Just asked a few questions about husbandry seeing that im really only experienced w/ panthers and veileds. He said they like it cooler and less damp/humid then panthers. Maybe an experienced mellers keeper will chime in on that. As for the age i took his word for it. All that aside he's awesome such a gentile giant to. he got a little pissed when i put the camera in his face, but all my guys do that

Mellers need lots of water. I dont know what he was talking about, but mellers are practically aquatic! Lots and Lots of water every day. Probably several hours of misting each day until he is acclimated.

A bit cooler for sure… ambient temps in the low to mid 70s, basking around 85. It is a good idea to place the basking lamp on an angle to allow lateral (side) basking, not directly down on the top of the animal. Mellers, just by being large take more time to warm up, thus they bask longer. Placing the lamp to allow for more efficient and natural lateral basking will reduce the chances of burning. They are pretty thirsty critters as well, give it plenty of drinking opportunities. Cheers!
Oh yea... check out www.melleridiscovery.com

pssh said:

Mellers need lots of water. I dont know what he was talking about, but mellers are practically aquatic! Lots and Lots of water every day. Probably several hours of misting each day until he is acclimated.

Click to expand...

Wow go's to show you some of the characters that sell at these show's. Im glad i learned not to just take some vendors/breeders word for things like that.

The guy prob get's in some w/c's and tries to flip them asap

poor thing. who knows how long he was stuffed into that glass tank w/ barley any water

Congrats. He is cute. And as Carol said. I love the purple mouth too. So neat.

Very nice! Did you get it from the vendor by Nathan's? I believe they are from Buffalo, NY? There was a larger one that someone else bought in the morning. He had 2, and chose the larger one.

Jimturner said:

A bit cooler for sure… ambient temps in the low to mid 70s, basking around 85. It is a good idea to place the basking lamp on an angle to allow lateral (side) basking, not directly down on the top of the animal. Mellers, just by being large take more time to warm up, thus they bask longer. Placing the lamp to allow for more efficient and natural lateral basking will reduce the chances of burning. They are pretty thirsty critters as well, give it plenty of drinking opportunities. Cheers!
Oh yea... check out www.melleridiscovery.com

Click to expand...

Thats a great link thank you so much. i'v been doing research all day this will help a lot

alee said:

Very nice! Did you get it from the vendor by Nathan's? I believe they are from Buffalo, NY? There was a larger one that someone else bought in the morning. He had 2, and chose the larger one.

Click to expand...

Yup that was us We were there pretty early and he still had the two of them they where really around the same size though our guy being slightly bigger.

heheh hes not very big....... yet

summoner12 said:

heheh hes not very big....... yet

Click to expand...

haha I know i have a feeling he's gonna be huge he feet are gigantic. Im writing down a few ideas on how i want to build him an outdoor enclosure for the summer.

You won't want to keep him outside in the summer time in NY.... too hot. Unless you can keep the ambient under 80, You'll want to keep him inside. melleri can do OK in the spring and fall when temps are a bit cooler. They like cooler temps in general. I've had a couple of my guys outside in 50 degree weather and they were just peachy.

read up on MelleriDiscovery.com good source of info!

Just FYI - there is more than one way (like as mentioned) to keep melleri. They come from a couple (three, I believe) different climates and environments. That is one of the problems with getting a w/c is that you never know where it got plucked from and thus, you are forced to guess as to which one.

I have a couple of the babies from this this group. One of the vendors was trying to pass them off as CB but based on the horns and other visible defects (not to mention the price), I begged to differ. I bought them anyway since I am well adept to acclimating w/c melleri and I am always looking for some good specimens for my colony. Mine are doing quite well, bent horn and all.

summoner12 said:

You won't want to keep him outside in the summer time in NY.... too hot. Unless you can keep the ambient under 80, You'll want to keep him inside. melleri can do OK in the spring and fall when temps are a bit cooler. They like cooler temps in general. I've had a couple of my guys outside in 50 degree weather and they were just peachy.

read up on MelleriDiscovery.com good source of info!

Click to expand...

Mine do spend some quality time in the summertime outside and they love it, both cooler temps and warmer (although they are not out there all day).

That is a great source, as are all of the good threads that we have posted on the species.

he is a beautiful creature....you shall call him Eddie Vedder

Well, this morning he doesn't seem to want to move around very much. I'm hoping it's just because he's stressed from whatever he went through with the man who sold him to us and not something worse. I've already called the vet so they are aware of us bringing in a fecal sample next week. We figured it's best to allow him to become acclimated before we take a sample. If it comes out positive for anything, we'll be bringing him it to get him checked out. Our vet LOVES seeing our chameleons, which makes me feel so happy that we were able to find him.

I've given him two nice mistings (just with the hand mister for now, until his new cage comes in and our mister is set up for him) and the plant is nice and wet with lots of droplets for him to drink from (if he ever decides to get up!). I'm thinking of actually pruning the plant a bit because it's actually looking too dark. I'm thinking because he fell asleep towards the base of the plant that not enough light is getting down to him to wake him up!