Saturday, January 27, 2007

Still no eggs

First remember that female reptiles will lays eggs whether inseminated or not, just like birds. A reptile is said to be "gravid" when she is carrying eggs. Period. No male required.

My veiled chameleon still has not dropped her clutch. She has displayed what I'm guessing to be gravid coloration for probably 2-3 weeks, but I've seen her belly grow in this time. So I don't know if the coloration comes early and then further down the line is when she finally lays those damn things. There is a giant bucket of sand (she will apparently dig a tunnel then bury them) in the cage with her, but she seems to be more apt to scratch at the green astroturf on the very bottom of the cage. Also, she still has a voracious appetite, and I wonder if that's another sign to looks out for, like not eating and then a few days later laying the eggs. I don't know, this is a first for me and I can't find a whole lot on the intricacies.

Anyway, here's her coloration right now. The white and the dark areas are not her normal, calm, colors. This is not even her "get out of my way I see a cricket" colors. I have only seen her these colors or darker once when the cat spooked her during "wholesale cricket slaughter" AKA dinner.
This picture is current, and she's about 7 months old. I think this may be on the young side for laying eggs, but you can't deny the colors.

Here's a picture from 5 months ago, right around when I got her:

Granted, one is in the trees and one is on a brown branch, but the white spots are not the normal darker colors she shows when she's on a branch. And look how her veil thingy has grown!

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