Is this a male Mellers chameleon ?

jsshark1 · Nov 30, 2014

Hi every one , I recently got two Melles Chameions . the place I got them from tells me the only way to sex them 100% is X-rays but will do his best to give me a male and female, one is around 18 inches and the other one is around 20 inches and I am trying to see if I can sex them, I read it is possible to tell if you can catch them taking a poop,

this one is the smaller of the two pooping, is the two black circle on the sides the hemipenes ? is this one a male ?

is it a Male?

I also wanted to ask , on this website ( section: How do I tell males from females?) states " monomorphism is a successful adaptation for melleri"
if two is keeped together one can change sex to be a male female pair?
http://www.melleridiscovery.com/breeding/breeding.htm

any thought on this?

thanks for reading

Olimpia · Nov 30, 2014

Hi and welcome!

I can't tell from the photos what that is with certainty so I'll leave that up to someone else. But monomorphism doesn't mean that they change their gender at will, that is something else entirely, what it means is that both males and females are visually identical/very similar physically. So it's not like females are smaller and dull colored while males are bright and flashy, like you see in other species (which would be dimorphic.)

Are you housing the two together?

fluxlizard · Nov 30, 2014

The only sure way to sex melleri that I found was to keep them visually isolated from one another for a few weeks, and then re-introduce them. Females and males will exibit typical chameleon social behaviors- females rock side to side and gape, males nod and flick their occipital lobes.

With a little experience, you can make a pretty good guess by examining the lizards from above. All chameleons have typical male and female shapes- females are sort of "pear" shaped, males are more straight bodied. Melleri are no exception to this.

jsshark1 · Dec 1, 2014

Hi, Thank you for the replys,

Thanks Olimpia for clearing that up for me

and Thanks Fluxlizard for your way of identifying yours I will notes.

they where house together with a third one I was told with no problems,
yes I have them together , they have no problem at all being together, I found the larger one resting his/her head on the smaller one back wile sleeping one night,
I also see them doing the head nod and flick their occipital but I never see any aggressive behavior between them at all, I will have to notes if one or both are swaying .