Labord's Chameleon Shortest Life

[Rush2112]

Wow, watching a show about Madagascar. It mentions and shows the Labord's Chameleon (Furcifer labordi). It has the shortest life span of ANY 4 legged vertebrate and lives only 4-5 months in an arid part of Madagascar. Does anyone know if they live longer in captivity? The explanation for this brief life was attributed to the wet season being so short with 8 months of very dry weather. It showed a male at newly hatched and at full grown. Grew 5 times its size in 3 months! Just curious if anyone knows about their fate if they were bred and raised captive. First image is a male, second female. Thanks

 

[JoeG]

Beautiful chams..

 

[Carlton]

Hard to say how much of the short lifespan trait is truly genetic (a result of many generations that weren't able to survive that killing dry season) or only because harsh seasonal change inevitably kills them directly. When you think about it why does any particular species have shorter or longer livespans in the wild? I don't think anyone knows whether a captive labordi will live to an older age if their cage climate is more stable than nature.

 

[chdwckvnstrsslhm]

I was under the impression these guys were semelparous and that was the reason for their short life span...not just that they can't survive into the dry season or whatever.

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semelparity_and_iteroparity)