Black Spots on my Veiled Chameleon

[Hagan5264]

Today I was looking at my chameleon and it was acting normal and then I went to get something to eat and when I came back it had spots all over it. It is a female, and I'm unsure of the age but I believe it is around 5-6 months old. I tried googling what this was and it said it may be showing colors that will become prominent when older but I don't think that's true. On this link is a picture of my chameleon with the spots and then a picture about a minute later when the spots went away. http://s844.photobucket.com/user/Nhagan97/media/Mobile Uploads/image_zpse7e4ojxm.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

On another note, whenever stressed it is a dark solid shade of green so this was a very weird thing to come back to.

 

[Carlton]

Today I was looking at my chameleon and it was acting normal and then I went to get something to eat and when I came back it had spots all over it. It is a female, and I'm unsure of the age but I believe it is around 5-6 months old. I tried googling what this was and it said it may be showing colors that will become prominent when older but I don't think that's true. On this link is a picture of my chameleon with the spots and then a picture about a minute later when the spots went away. http://s844.photobucket.com/user/Nhagan97/media/Mobile Uploads/image_zpse7e4ojxm.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

On another note, whenever stressed it is a dark solid shade of green so this was a very weird thing to come back to.

Chams wear their hearts on their skins so to speak. Increasingly dark spotting appears as the cham gets ramped up by something. Some of her normal markings will develop darker edges as she matures, but not all of those spots would show all the time. She's transitioning from her juvenile coloration (tends to be overall more green than patchy-spotty) to her more hormone-influenced coloration.

 

[Hagan5264]

So my veiled won't always be just green? I figured if she was going to gain more colors as she aged she would show it by now.

 

[Wowbango]

So my veiled won't always be just green? I figured if she was going to gain more colors as she aged she would show it by now.

Nope. Do a simple google search for Veiled Chameleon. You'll get hundreds of pictures of adult males/females with lots of spots and stripes. It's normal.

 

[BoopsPerson]

Mine will get black spots when she's hanging on her screen. When she moves to her foilage or vine she turns green again. Was curious if she was just trying to blend in myself.

 

[Carlton]

Mine will get black spots when she's hanging on her screen. When she moves to her foilage or vine she turns green again. Was curious if she was just trying to blend in myself.

Chams are not "deliberately" trying to blend in to their background. However, spots and different colored markings do break up the overall shape of the cham which makes it harder to pick out of the background. A single solid colored object is a lot easier to see than one that has "disruptive coloration".

When a cham's color starts changing to show spotting or more intense markings its due to a stress hormonal reaction in the pigmented cells in the skin. As the cham gets more active, upset, angry, afraid, excited by something that fires off the stress hormones, the pigmented cells in the skin expand or contract, and this causes color change. Its really an emotional response, not an attempt to hide.

 

[BoopsPerson]

Chams are not "deliberately" trying to blend in to their background. However, spots and different colored markings do break up the overall shape of the cham which makes it harder to pick out of the background. A single solid colored object is a lot easier to see than one that has "disruptive coloration".

When a cham's color starts changing to show spotting or more intense markings its due to a stress hormonal reaction in the pigmented cells in the skin. As the cham gets more active, upset, angry, afraid, excited by something that fires off the stress hormones, the pigmented cells in the skin expand or contract, and this causes color change. Its really an emotional response, not an attempt to hide.

I knew a lot of that but she doesn't seem particularly upset when she's on her screen. She just sorta changes when she's on her screen to black spots and green on her plants. Nothing will have changed other than she moved herself from one location to the other - sometimes the move in barely an inch. Could be that when she's on the screen she gets closer to the heating lamp, maybe that excites her?