That baby is a surprise. Plus a neat species too. More pictures as the baby grows up.
Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich
I just hope I can keep her alive. I will keep people posted with her pictures--she is such a really pretty little thing. I was told the species were very difficult to keep alive as neonates but she doesn't strike me as particularly fragile. My biggest problem has been finding small enough food for her. I have a gut feeling melanogasters might even be too big a food.
Poor thing has had everything go against her. First, her mother dying before laying the clutch. Eggs taken from a dead mother, even if she has just died have a substantially poorer hatch rate according to my vets. Next were the temps and diapause. I took a guess at the temps but didn't diapause until about six months into the incubation. I was given better information six months into the incubation which might explain why she hatched after 13 months of incubation which seems rather long considering the size of the species.
And then there was the actual hatch. I'm preparing for a move halfway across the country and checking on clutches that I think are dead or will die at hatch (since I had been told they were very very difficult to keep alive after hatching) was something I just forgot to do. I've been under a lot of stress over this move. Her egg had been sweating the last time I checked and I just plain forgot to check for about a week. To be honest, I thought the eggs were all dead--they were 13 months old after all--and long-dead eggs often stay perfect until they start to sweat and shrink.
I have no idea how old she really is. When I finally remembered to look at the eggs, I found her shrunken membrane that used to be her egg and took forever to find her as curled up she is about the same size as a big grain of Vermiculite. So poor baby could have been hatched for five or six days before I found her.
I put her in a gallon jar and she was all over the place--I think she was really hungry. Of course, I wasn't prepared with melanogaster fruit flies, so dripped hydei ff larvae around on the asparagus fern fronds. Someone suggested aphids and I went on a search in my garden for them. I'm also feeding her springtails. No pet stores or even Reptile Pets Direct (local for me) had melanogaster until Wednesday, a good five days after I found her.
Her next obstacle will be surviving five days of my husband's care when I go to look to buy a house in Wyoming. My husband has zero chameleon keeping skills..... I'll have a fogger set up on a timer, so I think she will be okay, but boy, she hasn't had it easy in my care. With her and my luck the timer will fail.....
Maybe if she lives I should name her five--it took me at least five days to remember to check on her sweating egg, and it was five days before I could find melanogaster ffs once I found her, and she is going to have to survive five days of my husbands care.
) There is a fruit fly on her right eye.
