Strange chameleon species (chamaeleo unicornis)

[Lizardlover]

http://www.taos-telecommunity.org/epow/EPOW-Archive/archive_2008/EPOW-081006.htm
[images have been removed due to copyright problems]

Its actually not its own species anymore, now its just a sub-species of the Owen's chameleon, still very interesting..thought id share

 

[Lizardlover]

BTW the last pic is of a normal Owenii

 

[Chameleon Nation]

Woah, that third picture is incredible.

 

[blackbetty]

How interesting!!!! Thats a really long single horn!

 

[BocaJan]

Great pictures!

 

[Lizardlover]

also notice their extremely long tails, because they are highly arboreal, and live in high up trees

 

[OntarioLizardman]

wow those are sweet chams! and i dig the scientific name

 

[desultadox]

Yeah I thought the tails seemed really long. I want like seven of these

 

[blackbetty]

Unicornis..Cute.. I thought they resembled Rhinos moreso..Unicorns are on their heads...

 

[Lizardlover]

yeah but there's already a chameleon named after rhinos, and unicorn means one horn, just like quadricorn is the four horned chameleon, so it's not necessarily named after the unicorn.

 

[blackbetty]

.Im MY world, a unicorn is a horse with a horn on its head..Dont need to know anything else. I like keeping my fantasies alive..LOL! (Sucks being a grown up!)

Either way, its very very cool.. and the colors ont he 3rd is just amazing..or lack there of I guess..Are those pics from a breeder or like a wildlife mag?

 

[Lizardlover]

The unicornis is from the wild, but the Owenii is from a breeder.

 

[jhappe]

are these(either one) ever available?

 

[Chris Anderson]

Actually this is not a subspecies of Chamaeleo (Trioceros) oweni. Previously, there was a "Chamaeleo unicornis" described but that was later added as a subspecies of Ch. oweni and it was then later synopsized with Ch. (T.) oweni and is no longer a valid species or subspecies. The animal with a single horn is simply a male Ch. (T.) oweni with only one horn, kind of similar to how some female Ch. (T.) jacksonii can have varying numbers of horns.

As far as captivity is concerned, this species is not exported frequently from West Africa where it is found. They seemed to be difficult for collectors to collect and the specimens that did end up being exported proved to be very challenging animals and typically did not do well. Beautiful animals though.

Chris

 

[ciafardo 4]

wow interesting!!!!!!!

 

[Lizardlover]

hmm thanks for the info chris, i just took tid-bits of what the website said, now i understand it a little bit more, i still think it should be its own species, or atleast a subspecies

 

[jhappe]

very interesting, id like to know more about these guys

 

[Lizardlover]

The unicornis (in my mind it will be its own species ) seems to be quite large, look at it in comparisin to the hand in the second pic, and the mans leg

 

[Lizardlover]

heres the site the unicornis pics came from, i just used Owenii pics for comparasin (not from the same site)

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...=/images?q=Owen%27s+Chameleon&um=1&hl=en&sa=N

 

[Chris Anderson]

Yeah well, a chihuahua might seem like a different species from a great dane or an Aborigine might seem like a different species then your typical caucasian but that doesn't mean that they are. They are definitely a fascinating form of the species Ch. (T.) oweni and I'm not trying to take away from that but I am obviously a stickler for accuracy with this type of thing and am a firm believer that such accuracy helps avoids confusion and ultimately helps avoid ignorance that can prove to be problematic for things such as conservation, husbandry, etc.

Chris