Dead-eye

[holmesese]

Wow, so I have a rather overly food aggressive panther chameleon.... Whenever I come to the cage he immediately starts sticking his tongue out and running for the open door - as soon as I hold my hand out he will snatch whatever food I have.

In general it is awesome to have a chameleon that is ALWAYS this excited to take food from my hands - especially when I am doing environmental education presentations. The kids just eat it up (no pun intended). However, on occasion, it can have a rather dangerous downside..........

Yesterday was the routine cage cleaning day so I simply opened up the cage door and out runs my cham onto the top of the enclosure begging for food as usual. So I ignore him and begin pulling the old newspaper out of his enclosure and am doing my thing when of the sudden SPLAT.... the hit knocked be backwards.... he shot his tongue and it stuck to MY EYEBALL!!!!

I have to say although it was rather amusing after the fact... it was actually a moderately painful experience to have a chameleon tongue briefly sticking to my retina.

What can I say? That cham has skills......


Moral of the story- Cat may get your tongue - but the chameleon can get your eyeball.

 

[Miss Lily]

OMG! What a shock for you! Amy has been known to run throught he cage when she sees me with food, lol! She has never tried to zap me though! She has zapped the camera lens a couple of times though when she has seen the autofocus shutter moving inside it, lol!

 

[Olimpia]

I'm ashamed to say I laughed out loud! It must have been horrible as it happened but it really is funny in the aftermath. But is everything fine with your eye?

 

[holmesese]

Yeah the ol' eye is allright. My wife heard me yell and came running into the cham room.. . but she couldn't quit laughing to see if I was allright.

He aims at my eyes quite frequently, but I usually catch him with his tongue out right before he shoots and I can move away. This time however I had no clue it was coming! My wife kept an eye out for me while I finished cleaning the cage and he kept trying to aim for the eyes!

Such a pig.

 

[Miss Lily]

Maybe he felt that his cage didn't need cleaning, lol!

 

[radstusky]

It's a good thing you don't have a Parson's, probably would have sucked your eyeball right out!

I saw my panther shoot some water droplets on the screen top the other day and I thought that was a bit odd, but going for an eye is is something I've never heard of. I guess you'll have to wear protective goggles next time.

 

[holmesese]

Yeah I guess he thought his cage was clean enough!!!

I am just curious what would have happened if I would have been wearing contacts!

 

[morpheon]

This is actually the second time i read such story! Congratulation on being one of the very rare!

 

[kinyonga]

Why not wear a pair of clear glasses/goggles in the future when cleaning the cage?

 

[Monkeykungphu]

Why not wear a pair of clear glasses/goggles in the future when cleaning the cage?

Safety glasses when handling chams is going to become the new norm! lol

 

[Carlton]

Either that or don't move your eyeballs at all while you are near the cage! Great story!

 

[Syn]

Must not be an abnormal thing, I've seen a few videos that are basically the same as described above on youtube. Silly chameleons.

 

[Breeze]

That's why, my cham's name is Zap'z... He zaps anything, my ear, finger, camera, etc... XD Not my eye though... thank goodness

 

[holmesese]

If I have time sometime soon I will try and get video of him aiming at my eyes. When I open the screen with no food in hand and look straight at him you can definitely tell he is watching me eyes. Then he will do the stretch and both of his eyes will lock on one of mine - that's when I know to back away slowly -haha.

 

[veildowner]

my panther tries shootin his tongue at my face every now n then. you can see him eyeing my face up when i open his cage for feeding etc

 

[joeandsoph]

Ewwwwwwww sounds gross! Tilly takes food from my hand and sometimes she does think I've automatically got food and she gets ready to shoot for my fingers. I have to introduce cup feeding aswell as we used to hand feed her mostly all the time.

She has a grossly sticky tongue, and I can't imagine anything worse than having it stuck on your eye. yuk yuk yuk lol.

 

[dreamforthedead]

Lmao to funny! My friends cham once shot his tongue up her nose. :s Yuk, now thats just nasty. Mia has never done anything like that YET

 

[joeandsoph]

Lmao to funny! My friends cham once shot his tongue up her nose. :s Yuk, now thats just nasty. Mia has never done anything like that YET

Yet...haha. It's going to happen now you've said that!