Wake up time?

DeviousMike

New Member
I've made an observation between my veiled and my panther. The veiled will wake up almost immediately after lights on in that he will move around a bit or at least straighten out his body so he is out of the tail curled sleep position.

On the other hand, my panther stays in the tail curl position for quite some time after lights on though he is quite alert and his eyes are always on a swivel. Last night he slept in the "drip spot" so I decided to turn the dripper on and he got a nice little awakening. I vaguely caught him drink (I think because he had his tongue out for a sec) and then he moved from the drip spot to just a another perch inches away and then went back to tail curl position but still wide awake.

Is this a species behavioral difference due to temperature? It was about 69 degrees F at the time of the observation. Or is it just a personality thing?
 
my little panther girl stays with her tail curled up after lights on for a couple min but then she starts moving around usually looking for food aha, or until i open the cage so she knows crickets will be thrown in soon so she wont run away when i open the door haha.
 
I have never really noticed any major differences over the last 13 years with different species sleeping longer than others. My observations are based uopon my observations with panthers, jacksons and veileds.
From time to time, I will have a cham who consistently sleeps a little later than the rest. But these particular chams are just as healthy as the rest of them.
 
This is a pretty good question Mike, and i believe it will be hard to find the answer!

The possibilities that would explain why a certain chameleon is waking up faster than others are very numerous. The temperature is possible, the UV irradiation as well, you could talk about humidity, or the animal being wild caught or not, i also think of genetic, what we could call the "internal clock" (if they have one), etc.

And just to add into the anecdotes: my panther and my first veiled both did like Ashleigh stated. However, my two verrucosus are already awake an hour BEFORE the lights turn on. That means that if i come with a small flashlight, they'll sense something (vibrations maybe, or light), and they'll have their eyes open already!
 
I'm going to go with individual personality then. Both my cages sit side by side with a towel in between. I'm going to assume temperature and humidity are close to identical since they are in the same place. One is larger then the other though but I have swapped both chams between the cages and the same behavior persist. I'm just glad it's not some sort of detrimental behavior. Thanks for input guys!
 
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