Calling all Oustalets breeders!!

[elchopchop]

hey guys,

So my Oustie babys are growing nicely - all healthy and feeding well. I have 2 that are several months older than the rest and although most people I have spoken to suggest that colour wise, males tend to be green and females tend to be brown or grey i'm wondering about their growth rates. As adult males tend to get larger than the females I would think that would suggest that the males grow more quickly than the females. Below are some pics I took today of the 2 chameleons in question:

As you can see the last 3 pictures shows a larger and greener specimen while the juvenile in the first 3 is more grey. There is only 6 days between these two and the smaller one is the eldest. As they are a furcifer I have sexed them the same way as you would sex hatchling panther chameleons and the smaller, grey chameleon seems to be female while the larger one is looking male. Does anyone think that the growth rate would suggest this also and if so can anyone explain the colour switch?

 

[Lizardlover]

In my experience oustalets are very slow growers, and typically greener specimins are female while brown/gray are male, the first chameleon pictured is male, not only can I tell by his colors but I can also see a hemipenal bulge, I can not explain the growth rates but in the end the male will be bigger. Hope that helps.

 

[Kent67]

1st animal is male, 2nd is female. Virgin females of this species are green but turn that red-brown color after breeding. Nice work hatching them, too.

 

[Lizardlover]

1st animal is male, 2nd is female. Virgin females of this species are green but turn that red-brown color after breeding. Nice work hatching them, too.

Or laying an infertile clutch.

 

[elchopchop]

interesting, thanks guys - it was the size thing that was throwing me more than anything. Maybe I just have a mutant female!! And thankyou to the guy who said nice work for hatching them - they have taken 12.5 months so far. I have 7 in total and another 40 or so eggs still incubating and looking good!!