Interesting behavior...

[flaminglazer72]

So this morning I sprayed down my enclosure and threw crickets in. About 10 minutes later my cham (Drax) crawls down to the bottom of the enclosure and appeared to be drinking water off the floor! I was watching him do this and out of nowhere he got defensive and let off a warning hiss then crawled up the side of the enclosure to his basking spot. Thoughts?

 

[Carlton]

Probably felt defensive being down out of his "tree". Chams usually don't like being low to the ground. His licking water off the cage floor might indicate that he doesn't have enough foliage or other surfaces to lick water droplets off of higher up. I wouldn't want my cham licking the cage floor because of all the nasty stuff he could be picking up...poop etc.

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Great insightful answer Carlton!

 

[flaminglazer72]

Probably felt defensive being down out of his "tree". Chams usually don't like being low to the ground. His licking water off the cage floor might indicate that he doesn't have enough foliage or other surfaces to lick water droplets off of higher up. I wouldn't want my cham licking the cage floor because of all the nasty stuff he could be picking up...poop etc.

Alright, but he has plenty of leaves to get water from. Does he just need to learn that's where the water is? I've seem him drink off the leaves before...

 

[kinyonga]

I've seen a lot of chameleons lap water from a "puddle". I think they realize that they can ingest a lot more faster from the "puddle" than picking drops off the leaves.

 

[MissLissa]

I formed some fake leaves to form a sort of bowl near the top of my cham's enclosure. His dripper drips into it, fills it up (it's maybe maybe 1 cm deep), then drips down onto the next level of leaves as it overflows. My cham very much prefers to drink out of his "leaf pool" than anywhere else. Once a day I wash his "bowl" with a damp cloth to make sure nothing gross is growing in there. But my cham is pretty quirky, even for a panther cham.