Strange thing happeneing to tail.....

[Chameleon Kingdom]

I was curious if anyone has seen anything like this before.... It's only on one side of the tail. I want to wait until he sheds before I take him to the vet. One day he looked fine, the next, we noticed it looked funny. All my other sub adults look perfect. His basking bulb isn't on his screen cage, it's suspended, so I don't think it's a burn... Does anyone have a clue????

 

[studiocham]

If not a burn, then it is a symptom of some kind of nerve damage to the tail. You might take him to the vet ASAP and get him X-rayed. Maybe a vertebra is pinched? Has he had a fall in his enclosure?

I have seen it twice before: 1. bilaterally in a CB veiled who suffered nerve damage when blood was drawn from the caudal vein, 2. bilaterally in a melleri import, possibly from injury during the rough handling of importation.

The veiled never regained color changing ability in the tail. The melleri slowly recovered, went to almost perfectly unilateral, then to complete normal color changing ability (took almost a year).

 

[Chameleon Kingdom]

Thanks for the input. As far as I know, he didn't fall, and if he did, it wouldn't be but 15 inches. He's almost 6 inches S-V. It's already starting to look better, but we are going to set an appointment with our vet. I'll post when I find out more. It doesn't seem to bother him. He has an excellent grip, and appears to be in no pain when I touch it. But, the vet eill be able to tell me more, I just wanted some inputs for other people. You never know what another peoson might know unless you ask!! Thanks again,


Cyndi and John
Chamleoen Kingdom

 

[roo_71]

Good luck with him. I would think about getting some climbing stuff on the right side of the cage to help keep him off the screen – from the pic it seems pretty barren on that side. He is probably putting a good amount of weight on his claws and is risking a fall and/or foot damage.

-roo

 

[Chameleon Kingdom]

He's actually on the opened screen door. If you look on the left side of the metal corner, you can see the white divider between the cages. Thanks for the concern though. They all have a lot of vines and branches, but some of them like to climb on the sides, I'm not sure why. They've done it since the day they were born. Most of them seem to stop at a certain weight. Here'a a picture of how all of our cages are set up.



Any more feed back is appreciated!!

 

[roo_71]

He's actually on the opened screen door.

Haha .. sorry.

-roo

 

[Will Hayward]

The plant should be resoild without additives in my opinion.

 

[Chameleon Kingdom]

Will,

Thanks for your concern, we repot the plants with nonfertalized dirt before the plant goes into a cage. That plant was put into that cage as a show model, not the chameleons actual plant and stand. We've made all the stands the same. We have 2-3 plants per cage and switch out the plants every 3 weeks or so, in order to keep our plants alive and healthy, to not drown the roots from the constand mistings they recieve every day.

 

[Chameleon Kingdom]

Update on the strange thing that happened to tail.

It's the weirdest thing!!! We were waiting to take him to the until he shed. We figured it would be okay because he showed no sign of distress, or pain. His behavior didn't change at all. Before he could shed, almost over night The black is about gone and the tail looks almost completly back to normal!!!

 

[suzanne]

i was going to put the same question up we have 2 new panther and ours are showing the same whiteness on the base of tail like calcium sprinkled on them , first the female had it then it went now the male has it they are both housed separately its not a burn , haven't fell so don't know what it is