An In-Depth Look at the Dazzling Diversity of Panther Chameleon Locales

Panther Chameleon Community Topics of Discussion

First is husbandry. There are many approaches to husbandry. And it would be fine if everyone who actually proved out a husbandry routine would be content to present it and not care how others do it successfully. Sorry, our community is much more soap opera than that. Warring tribes on social media have staked their claim on there version of the truth and do not care whether evidence supports or refutes their selected mindset. Without going into the rabbit hole on this, I want to warn you that social media groups have no problem criticizing breeders that have ten times the experience that they do. Do not get confused if your select social media group directly contradicts what your breeder told you to do. Now, I never understood why people will throw away the husbandry that an experienced breeder has proved out for generations of panther chameleons in exchange for a Facebook admin that has a tenth of the experience. I really don’t get it. It doesn’t take anything to become and admin. Remember that. There are admins with exceptional depth of experience and there are ones that are a friend of a friend. Stop assuming social media teams know enough to replace what a reputable breeder does. Yes, there are different approaches. And here is a hint. If the approach didn’t work, the breeders wouldn’t be doing it. Sick and dying breeding stock is a very business killing event.

And yes, I am a Facebook admin. Yes, I advise a husbandry routine that is different from a number of the most successful breeders. And, yes, I both have tested mine and respect that their’s has been tested as well. None of us has the ultimate truth! We are all working to figure this out. You’ll find fights over what supplementation to use, what UVB configuration to use, and whether screen cages are the one and only acceptable caging. And these will continue to rage on and on. They wouldn’t if everyone was working off of evidence and testing, but they are not. There is a great deal of emotion and ego involved. Does this sound like a whole lot of complication you really don’t need in your young chameleon keeping life right now?

Good. Then just embrace this bottom line. Decide who you want to listen to and don’t get second or third opinions unless you are prepared for completely opposite responses that say you are killing your chameleon. I suggest you research your advisors just like you do your breeders. How long have they worked with panther chameleons? How many generations have they raised? You will be shocked how shallow many social media expert’s experience is. You are welcome to decide which voice you will listen to, but if you start taking advice from another group don’t come back to the breeder asking why your chameleon needs help. Go to which ever group you have decided to listen to. Because, these different opinion groups have figured out how to make their way work and so they are experienced in troubleshooting their way. They are not experienced in troubleshooting other people’s ways. This is where the Facebook group I work with, The Chameleon Enthusiasts is unique. We use the Chameleon Academy way to teach beginners who do not already have a baseline husbandry, but the team has made the effort to be knowledgeable in the different approaches of panther chameleon breeders and can help you with the method you have been shown by your breeder. We can help you tweak things in your selected husbandry method without requiring you to switch everything out to match our beginner method.

One thing I hear often from people looking for their first panther chameleon is a exclamation about the price. Yes, panthers can be anywhere from $300 to over $500 and close to $1000 for prized rare locale males. Bu this high price is the reason why you have such good choices available to you. If they were $200 then no one could afford to be serious with them and they would be available through hobby breeders that would come and go as their attention faded. The prices ensure that all exports could cease and we would have panther chameleons available to us for many years. Notice how most chameleon species disappear once imports stop? That is because it isn’t worth breeding them. Yes, I know, we should all love our hobbies. But a breeding project takes more than just being a hobby. You need bloodline diversity, time, and are constantly pouring in financial resources. If it is always a loss then people simply won’t continue doing it once they have had their fun. Of course, the price is not driven by some altruistic force wanting to establish the species in captivity. It is simple supply and demand and there is little control we have over it beyond being our part in the market forces. I am actually looking at expanding my work with panther chameleons beyond the Ambanjas I have now and I will be gladly paying full price for the best genetics.

Finally, there are generational designations you see describing the lineage. There are two designations, the Filial number and the Captive Generation number. The Filial number is that F1, F2, F3 number. This is to designate how far your panther chameleon is from having wild blood. If a father or mother is wild caught then the baby is F1. It is one generation from wild blood. It doesn’t matter how many captive generations the other parent is. You could mate a wild caught male to an F10 female and the baby would be F1. You can only graduate to F2 if one of the parents is F1 and the other is F1 or greater. So, you see how the Filial system tracks the parent that is closest to the wild?

This doesn’t work well for panther chameleons. That is because we have to prove out our females and we structure our lines around the females. A wild caught female is a wild card. We have no idea what locale she is. We know that exporters in Madagascar either accidently or deliberately mislabel females because they know they can get away with it. If someone orders 100 ambilobe females and the exporter has only 80, but they have a bunch of Ambanja females they aren’t going to go through the expense to get another 20 Ambilobes, and they would hate to lose out on the profit of those 20…and Ambanja isn’t really that far from Ambilobe and so you can see what may happen. So a reputable breeder will get a clutch from that female, raise it up, and verify it is the locale expected before selling the offspring as Ambilobe. And this is self-preservation. If a bunch of customer complain that your Ambilobe is actually an Ambanja cross that throws all the eggs you have collected from that female into question and there is a serious hit to the trust in any of your pairings. How many others have you done this with they wonder. So a proven female is a very valuable chameleon. So the females a proven female produces will continue the line. Because it is easy to find an unrelated male to bring in. And by easy I mean it is easy to tell the locale of the male and he can be productive right away without the long proving out process. So say you bring in a wild caught male for every successive generation. The offspring are always F1 because the male is always wild caught. But the females may have been five generations in. This means that the confidence is sky high that you are getting an Ambilobe. But if you see F1 that baby could easily be from an unproven wild caught mother. This is why we came up with the CG, or captive generation designation. A fifth generation female mated to a wild caught male would produce F1, CG6. And this communicates the value of the genetics. A wild caught male which brings in strong wild genetics, and a fifth generation mother designating the confidence in her genetics. So if you see a CG number along with the Filial F number that is what is being communicated.

Just some background, the CG system is something I proposed on this podcast back in episode 14 to solve our problem. It has been adopted by at least one panther breeder and, actually, at least one gecko breeder. But it started here on this podcast so don’t expect anyone outside the chameleon community to know what you are talking about. It is a very useful tool to accurately communicate the genetic mix so I hope it gets more widespread use.

Now, no system is perfect. You can see how you could get an F1, CG 5 rating by mating a well known 4th generation male with a wild caught female. And that isn’t a pairing with the amount of confidence the CG5 would suggest. So, like everything human hands touch, there is a way to mess it up. As always, it is important that you are working with a breeder you have high confidence that they know what they are doing and care about their work. Reputation is worth so much more than the lowest price.

Selecting Your Panther Chameleon Age

First, let’s address the standard question about Wild-caught vs captive hatched.

In 2021, you are unlikely to run into wild caught chameleons from Madagascar. They occasionally come in, but are usually snapped up by breeders. And this is fine. Starting out, you want the experience of raising up a baby. It is incredibly fulfilling. I know we tend to want the immediate fulfillment of having this brightly colored beast slinking around the room, but, honestly, even if you do get an opportunity to buy an adult, I strongly encourage you to not cheat yourself of the experience of getting a well started baby and watching him or her grow up and grow into his or her colors. It is truly one of the most fulfilling parts of chameleon keeping.

Keen-eyed readers will note that I added on “from Madagascar” when talking about wild caught Panthers. There is a wrinkle to this and something to watch out for. It is hazy exactly how this happened, but there is a population of panther chameleons that are in Florida and these make their way into being sold to the pet market. The issue with these is that you cannot necessarily determine locality and they are most likely mixed. We now have a Florida locality of Panther Chameleon. If you are looking for a pet, these may come to you in good condition, but I will still encourage you to go for a captive hatched panther. We will get into locales very soon so you can understand the complications and make an informed decision.

By far, the most common form you will find panther chameleons is as three+ month old juveniles that are shipped to you from a breeder. With the mature panther breeding community we have in place, you are able to choose locale and get a lineage for the baby. So you can select not only a baby, but view the parents and grandparents. There is one breeder that can offer you beyond ten generations of lineage. Every chameleon is an individual, but you can get a pretty good idea of what they will look like.

With a solid breeder infrastructure comes solid husbandry help. You now can interface with someone who is doing this as a substantial side business or even as their primary business and with that comes increased ability to offer customer support. You can safely choose to have a panther chameleon be your first chameleon or even first reptile pet and the support structure from the breeders and multiple social media sites will be there for you to lean on. This is the safest way to start with chameleons.

Since you are selecting a juvenile by lineage you may have to wait for a clutch to hatch and be ready for sale. Consider this all part of the fun. More importantly, this gives you the opportunity to get your cage and equipment in, set-up, and running. So it is ready for your chameleon to come home.

With Panther Chameleons you actually have the option to have eggs shipped to you. Many people see this option on eBay and the price is quite attractive. You have no idea whether you will have a male or female, but, reading the description, it sounds pretty easy to do. This is a touchy subject with many passionate opinions ranging from it being better to ship an egg rather than a live chameleon to it being unethical to sell eggs. Feelings run high on this so if you start or join a discussion online – hold on tight. I’ll give you the high level considerations. You are sent an egg to finish its incubation. Assuming the egg is fertile and healthy, this is really not that big of a deal. Standard room temperatures in the low to mid 70s are effective for incubation. Once the baby hatches you just have to be ready for a chameleon in the miniature.

Sounds simple…what is the controversy? Well, chameleon babies are sensitive to raise up and so may be a challenge for someone getting used to chameleon husbandry. There is a reason why we chameleon breeders wait three or so months to send you a well started baby panther. By three months old they are actually easy to care for and have a certain tolerance range that can allow for small husbandry lapses. A hatchling, on the other hand, doesn’t allow much buffer. Once they show signs of sickness it is hard to bring them back.

So, should you consider buying an egg? I’d say be careful with that. Personally, I don’t think that shipping an egg to a customer who is fully aware of what they are getting is unethical, per se. In my opinion, the major concern is whether you are ready to take a baby from hatching. There are challenges to raising up a baby chameleon. Now, there are resources to tell you how to do it so technically, you could study up on it and make it work. And if you found a seller that would provide mentorship and you got everything ready ahead of time it could work. So I am going to say proceed with caution. Consider buying an egg only along with diligent study into husbandry of chameleon babies. The information that came along with a test a friend of mine did was sparse. I can’t speak for everyone so maybe here is someone out there that has better support. And, warning, just be ready for the backlash if you share what you have done on social media. Support for shipping eggs is running low at this time.

The Different Types of Panther Chameleons!

FAQ

How many panther chameleon locales are there?

With over 34 different locales, panthers differ in color based on the geographical region of madagascar that they’re found!

What is the rarest panther chameleon?

A rare form of panther chameleon on Nosy Be was lacking yellow pigment and created a striking blue panther chameleon. This for is usually called the “Nosy Be blue” and can usually be found from the right breeders.

Where do chameleons live in the US?

The green anole, or American Chameleon, is indigenous to the sub-tropical areas of the southern United States.