large silkworms and jacksons tongue issue

Whammo72

New Member
Ive grown my first batch of a couple thousand silkworms to nearly 3 inches. The last time i gave one to my jackson's his tongue stuck to it but it didnt budge. He was literally dragged to the silkworm by his tongue and had to pick it off the branch with his mouth. I didnt realize they could grab that strong.

My question is how dangerous is this for the chams tongue? It certainly looked painful and freaked me out a bit. Should I take some precautions? If so how? He is pretty hand shy and only hand fed once. It took me about 15 minutes of acting like a tree. :)
 
Bigger worms do have a strong grip. If Chameleon is able to walk to the prey, it's usually okay. You might want to feed from a plastic cup. Something that the insect can't hold onto very good. Also if your using mulberry leaves to feed your silks, you can place a silkworm on a leaf. That way the chameleon can shoot for the worm, and have no resistance. (or at lease the weight of the leaf) If tongue picks up leaf, chameleon will grab worm, and leaf usually gets dropped to the ground. Sometimes a leaf will get ingested, but not very often.
 
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