Chamaeleo Namaquensis

Dean, those were either Chamaeleo (Chamaeleo) africanus or Chamaeleo (Chamaeleo) chamaeleon. Seeing as the Namaqua chameleon hails primarily from South Africa, you would be hard pressed to find any legally imported specimens.
 
They put me in mind of horny toads. I like them. With temp ranges like that, seems it would be easier husbandry. Such a rugged lizard deserves to be free though. Imagine... getting it feeder scorpions? lol I could not pay a roommate to live here then! :p"
 
Puritania said:
How fascinating! I'm completely intrigued with the idea of a terrestrial Chameleon. Has anyone kept these at all? Haven't been able to find to much info on them, pretty much just the basics:

http://www.adcham.com/html/taxonomy/species/cnamaquensis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namaqua_Chameleon
Click to expand...

They are an absolutely incredible species. In the heat of the day they change colour to completely white (as in the colour of a healthy cham's urates), and this enables them to reflect so much heat that a thermal imaging camera shows that their internal temperature is lower than the surrounding ambient temps, despite them being on the top of a desert sand dune.

I do believe that their husbandry would be incredibly difficult though, despite their ability to withstand extremes of temperature ranges. They aren't arboreal, and also have burrowing tendencies (usually when attempting to avoid the heat of the sun), so you'd have to use up a lot more space to house them properly.
They would possibly also be a lot less tolerant of normal husbandry techniques like misting, so watering could be tricky. Again, intuitively you'd think that because they need less water, they'd be easier to keep, but since they receive most of their water from the food they eat, how could you be sure that the usual insect fare we provide our chams were meeting their nutritional/hydration requirements?
I don't these chameleons have been studied enough to make them suitable to be kept as pet chameleons yet.

But then, as Will pointed out, they are a species native to South Africa, and it is prohibited to keep, trade or distribute reptiles endemic to South Africa. So it would be extremely difficult to obtain a legal specimen to keep (and even illegal ones would be hard to come by, because if you've ever explored the Namib desert, you'll realise it would be much easier for poachers to pick up illegal flap-necks and Bradypodions that live in less hostile habitats, rather than finding Namaquensis in all that barrenness).
 
Dean, do you remember who was selling them or what price they were. You are thinking that they were African or Common Chameleons now right?
thanks!
 
Aquaseafoam said:
Dean, do you remember who was selling them or what price they were. You are thinking that they were African or Common Chameleons now right?
thanks!
Click to expand...

For nearly the last year, they (C.c.chamaeleon and/or africanus ) have been appearing on Kingsnake classifieds periodically, with photos (somewhat poor though and hard to correctly identify species). First time I saw them on there was over a year ago. Maybe every 4 months since then. Only one ad posting though, then it falls off the page.
 
Does anyone have the national geographic special link handy? Puritania - they had a good hour long show about this paticular subspecie that you would LOVE! Katupia was the name of the female they followed around, it was a nice special they did, i hope someone has the link and can chime in below me!
 
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