Megana: 725g 23.5" gravid Meller's

[Chameleons Northwest]

Our female Meller's chameleon is gravid and tentatively due to lay around March 22nd. Normally she weighs about 500 to 540g. She is now up to 725g. She is WC and measures 11" SVL plus a 12.5" tail, making her total length 23.5". She is also very "tall", not a sleek streamlined chameleon but rather one with a very high back height. She's in the shower now. I'll measure her back height when I take her out of the shower.

We are hoping for a successful egg-laying endeavor later this month, and for babies late this year.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

She is a beautiful chameleons, and she produces beautiful babies too! Currently, my brother has one of her offspring. Very very nice, and the "height" is definitely genetic. The CH yearling has a very high dorsal crest with very well-defined, ahh... crenulations... godzilla fins... whatever they're called!

The female I have is one of them that came in with Megana. She's just at 22". I've had her (and my brother has had her yearling) since March. It's the one Kristina marked with yellow.... I wanted that one. Joey kind of liked it better, and had been caring for them for months, so I let him keep it. I'll try to get pics of it down the road - you could use it for advertizing the babies! hehe.

I ended up with one CH from my WC female, and one from a WC female that may have died after laying eggs. Should be a good year for melleri if we can get them reproducing.

Gotta get pics of that monster melleri.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Hi, Eric. THank you for the information. I would love to see photos of her offspring.

Her center back height is 5" when resting in a "normal" position.

Here is a photo taken today. She has some gular edema, which I expect will go away after egg laying. It is in the throat area, and does not extend to the shoulder area, which is flat. Her back legs look beefy. When you feel them they feel meaty rather than bloated, but I do suspect she must be carrying some edema in her back legs as well. Kristina (of Melleri Discovery, "studiocham") has helped me in the past with keeping Megana's weight down. But since becoming gravid I have allowed her to eat more. She still normally only wants food every other day, and sometimes goes for several days without wanting food which I am not allowing myself to freak out about. Apparently Megana knows when she's not hungry and she appears to be doing well, healthwise. She gets gutloaded crickets, cockroaches, and worms. Mostly cockroaches. She likes them big. Her food is dusted occasionally. She is one of those Meller's that is very sensitive to supplements. So she gets most of her nutrition via the gutload, with occasional dusting. I have given her a little more supplement dusting since we witnessed the first mating in March. She was very healthy prior to the mating, so I have good reason to anticipate healthy babies.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Gorgeous!
Gotta love a big, beefy two foot chameleon!

-Brad

 

[Eric Adrignola]

She's got the same, nice, light coloration as the CH yearling. Pretty cool. Massive lizard.

 

[laurie]

That is a big cham, she really is a B & B cham, that is big and beautiful. Jay will be starting plans for one of her off spring, just wait and see. He keeps eyeing the mellers, so one that beautiful will seal the deal.

We will need to see the babies hatching and growing.

 

[chambabysitter1]

Look at that belly! She looks enormous.

Mellers are insanely cool, perhaps I should start making room for one someday in the future.

Anyways, I wish you luck gesang.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

I believe her and the female I have laid upwards of 90 eggs last year.

 

[toddmkeller]

That is a big cham, she really is a B & B cham, that is big and beautiful. Jay will be starting plans for one of her off spring, just wait and see. He keeps eyeing the mellers, so one that beautiful will seal the deal.

We will need to see the babies hatching and growing.

I am not absolutely sure but I think that Megana is one of the females that laid the clutches of CH babies for Mike last year. Maybe that is your CH's babys momma.

See Ya,

Todd

 

[Eric Adrignola]

My brother and I have a total of four CH melleri from Mike. There are two of them from the female I have right now. One (that I have ) is from a female I believe to be deceased. The other, in my brother's possion, is definiatley from Megana.

Kristina kept track of the animals she recieved from Mike. When I aquired them from her, they were still color-coded for ID.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Megana laid 80 some eggs last year. Mike was keeping track of the parentage for as long as he could, but had a few hundred babies to deal with! I was hoping people would be able to keep track in case I ever needed to aquire another Meller's and wanted to be sure I wasn't getting identical bloodline.

 

[Malicious]

Jay will be starting plans for one of her off spring, just wait and see. He keeps eyeing the mellers, so one that beautiful will seal the deal.

We will need to see the babies hatching and growing.

Laurie knows me all to well...


Shes is truly magnificent Sandy!

I am going to get a mellers sooner or later and I hope one of these is my calling....


-Jay

 

[summoner12]

WOW she is MASSIVE! I wish you good luck with her and the eggs.... I will be putting your number into my phone.... for when they arrive I shall call.

 

[Pure]

She is impressive. I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed for you!

LOL Sandy, I think you may have disturbed a Bees nest. Is your inbox blowing up or what.

 

[luevelvet]

Shes beautiful. Good work! At just under a year old ours is pushing 14" TL already. He just went through a growth spurt and shed twice in the just under two weeks. The last shed was 3-4 weeks prior to that one. We need to get an updated weight but I'm sure he's pushing 200grams now.

I've found that RO water helps with Gular Edema. Ours displayed some signs of it and once I installed the RO filter, it went away within a couple of weeks. I have to admit, everyone looks a little happier since using RO water. Go figure...

Luis

 

[Eric Adrignola]

The edema may be related to her being overweight as much as her being gravid.

I would seriously cut back her food intake. Even now, she has enough stores to produce a clutch of eggs, a cut back should do nothing but help her. After she has recovered from laying eggs, I would put her on as strict a diet as possible.

Starvation will not work, it will damage her liver more so.

The key is to just feed her every other day or so a tiny amount of food - mealworm or superworm beetles (got to wash their rear ends off first, else they'll spit them out), crickets, etc. Something "light". In very small quantities. Maybe one or two insects every feeding.

The more I look at her, and the more I think about that weight, the more I am concerned. My WC female is BIG. She's 22 inches and in very good shape. Not fat at all, but healthy. And I believe she's putting on eggs, too. She is 412 grams.

Megana is a bit bigger, but she weighs more than my WC female and Ardi, my 20" male, put together. She is beyond big. She's in serious danger. One thing you must do is ingore her when she begs for food and stick to a diet.

She's huge and beautiful, as is her offspring. It would be a shame for her to simply die of liver failure. It's slow and miserable to see them just become lethargic, less and less interested in food or water. Over a few weeks, they just stop eating altogether. Then they lose strength, lay on the floor for a week or two. One day, they're just dead. Plump and healthy looking, but dead.

Chameleons should always be hungry. Every time I pass them, they flock to me like kids wanting to know what Daddy brought them home for a treat. The only times I have had chameleons refuse food (discounting females just about to lay)was when my deremensis were on their way out via liver failure.

They can survive on a fraction of what they would eat if left up to them. I've seen Ardi eat over 30 insects in a day(including big roaches - their appetite comes in handy for educational shows!). He normally gets 3-5 every other day.

Please be careful with Megana's intake - it's so hard to deny them food. If she continues that way, she really has no chance of a long life.

Please don't take offense - I've seen so many animals die from fat-lizard related issues. To be honest, if she were not such a fantastic specimen, I might have kept my mouth shut! You have a real prize lizard there, and I want to see her thrive!

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Thank you, Eric. I will follow your advice. It's the same thing Kristina and I did to get her to lose 100g last year. Before she put on all her initial weight last year, I had begun feeding her according to the guidelines on The Melleri Discovery husbandry feeding page. But she got too big.

"Acclimated adults maintain healthy weights when fed 1-2 large prey items once or twice daily or every other day (for a daily total of 2 to 4 large bugs). Adult melleri will also eat 1-3 two-to-four-inch long pieces of greens a day. New imports should be offered as much prey as they will eat. Gravid females and growing youngsters should be fed liberally."

When she became gravid I was afraid to hold back on the food, as the guidelines are to feed her "liberally". But obviously Megana is one of those beings who tends to put on weight very easily. Some humans are the same way. I will cut back again, and have been taking her out for some exercise, too.

 

[summoner12]

Good info Eric! Thanks for the eye opener!

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Eric:
When Megana arrived here, right after laying her 80 some eggs for Mike, she weighed 405g. That was her freshly imported WC post-gravid weight. So, we do know that even in the wild she was a big heavy girl. But, I would guess, that her optimum weight while in the wild would probably have been in the 400-500g range? Perhaps around 450g? Does that sound right, if post-gravid freshly imported she weighed 405g? We'll get some weight off her now, but I am just wondering what weight I should shoot for after she lays her eggs?

Here is some info collected earlier about her weights:
"When Megana came here March 4th from Florida, right after laying that clutch for Mike, she weighed 405g. Six weeks later she had gained 105g (April 30th). By August she had gained another 30 grams and stayed at about 540 for a while. By the end of November she had gained another 100g, to top out at 645g, which was not good. Kristina worked with me to back her weight down into the 500s. I would say her max standard weight is between 500 and 540. But she's a BIG girl. Remember, she is twice the size of her mate."

 

[ciafardo 4]

R.O. water is basically as pure as distilled water right? Being that everything is removed