Soaking as a behavior

[Kent67]

I've been keeping many species of chameleons for a real long time and what happened yesterday afternoon shocked me. I had some 14 week old jacksonii jacksonii in a well planted 3x2x2 cage outside in the sun with a mister going. I left the mister going for about an hour and when I came out to my horror I found one of the babies on his side, almost completely submerged by water building up in the corner. He was very dark in color and looked dead. As I reached in to pick up the body, he tried to bite me! I actually think he was soaking on purpose. He was on his side with nothing but the tip of the face and some toes sticking out above water. He started a shed the day before but was mostly finished by then. Has anyone else seen a chameleon soaking in standing water?

 

[kinyonga]

I used to have a C. chameleon that curled up in a peanut butter jar lid I kept in the cage to catch the water in...and there was often water in it at the time. After seeing him do this a couple of times, I made sure that I emptied the lid before his bedtime each night and he still curled up in it.