abusive veiled

[ciafardo 4]

today i decided i would try and pair up my super orange and yellow veiled with a nice female . I started by letting them see each other so everything went as normal she was receptive so i open the cage and let him in (i find that male veileds are a little more gentle if you put them in the female enclosure ). so i let him in and in a second he charged her and just about chomped her front leg completely i quickly broke it up and he got another bite in on her side i was so mad i wanted to throw him out the window but instead i put him back in his enclosure! This was his first and his last time breeding . I have bred quite a few veileds and hatched numerous clutches and never have i seen such aggression towards a female. this psycho will remain single for the rest of his life i dont care how good he looks! the female has a broken leg and a nasty gash so anyone one breeding veileds beware there are psycho males that are just to aggressive to breed.

 

[Syn]

I remember ChamElisa posted once that someone was trying to adopt all of her panther chameleons, but he (probably accidentally) blurted out there was a feisty male that broke the necks of all of the female panthers he mated with! Just be glad it isn't that bad!

 

[jojackson]

It does happen, reptile 'moonlighting' is normally more akin to rape. Examples like this though are the extreme end. Monitors can be quite vicious aswell, I have heard of males killing females. Im sure this is not deliberate, afterall it wont get to pass its genes, which is a step backward.
Such behaviour extremes are still largely a mystery.

Just curious, was there much difference in size at all? I think such a male would be eliminated from the gene pool by natural attrition anyway. I dont know if such a nasty behavioural trait is genetic or not, or just a freak.

Either way, its a fascinating observation. Sorry about your female, I hope she recovers.

 

[AFH]

How old is the male? I find that veiled males are pretty aggressive up though about 2 years old. I had an ultra aggressive male that I tried to breed at a little over a year and he attacked the lady, though not to the extreme that yours did. He's about 2 now and has calmed down considerably.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

I am fairly certain this behavior is due to our need to keep animals separate. In the wild, the animals interact with each other, and learn their behaviors and signals. When isolated, they have no way of learning what "NO" means, and will not stop trying to mate a female.

This is further problematic in captive situations, where females are simply thrown to the males. In the wild, a non-receptive female would more likely keep her distance from males. When we throw them into a cage, they're kinda stuck.

One of the reasons older males calm down is that they learn to respect gravid or non-receptive coloration. It isn't going to get them anywhere, so they know to back off. I think this happens earlier in some males than others - depending on their experiences with the females.

 

[Docility]

i have seen pictures before of wild chameleons with a few around each other, and when you go looking for chameleons in the wild dont they say they are generally in the same area? this may lead out never house 2 chams together which i support 100% if they are the same sex, but honestly it is important for things to interact. im not saying all male/ female will be happy with each other just as i cant have my wife chosen for me and love her. some people just dont mix and it goes same for animals to, but again more research is needed to be done for a definite answer

 

[VerteX]

What Eric is saying is very valid. In the wild, the female would, not only keep her distance, the male would learn to do the same as well; since a fight that may result in death in one or the other, thus not helping the existence of the future generations. Petr Nečas talks about this behavior in his book where male veileds that haven't seen other males may display such aggresive behavior when introduced with a female veiled.

I could say first hand experience with this behavior as well in Calcifer's attempted mating. The "ceremony" between the male and female was going as it should. The female was slowly put in to the males cage at an opposite corner where she kept displaying receptive colors and passive behavior. However, I ended up breaking up a fight and felt very sorry for my female.

We still have a lot to learn from chameleons.

 

[laurie]

so i let him in and in a second he charged her and just about chomped her front leg completely i quickly broke it up and he got another bite in on her side this psycho will remain single for the rest of his life i dont care how good he looks! the female has a broken leg and a nasty gash so anyone one breeding veileds beware there are psycho males that are just to aggressive to breed.

Phil I have the reverse of your male. My female had receptive colors so I held her up in front of my male’s cage. No response from either one. I opened his cage to hold her a little closer. He started down really fast, as I got ready to move her; he went over her and up my arm. This is a male who won't get near a human or allow a human near him. So here he sits on my upper arm, almost my shoulder. I left her in his cage and put him in the free range tree. I moved her back to her cage, and totally without thinking walked over picked him up and put him back in his cage. He never hissed, gaped or anything. I was dumb founded when I though about what I did. Today, 2 days later, I tried to get my hand near him, at about 10 inches he started hissing and moving to bite me. I have no idea what is with this cham but am not sure I should ever try to breed him. Except for the fact that he put holes in my arm it was the funniest thing I have ever seen, I would have killed to get a video. So where do we go from here??

 

[littleliz]

Sooo reading what you are all saying here I'm thinking that if you want to breed your chams you should allow them to see each other from a safe distance from time to time so that they get used to each other?

 

[AJA]

A thought I had about this and remembering other misguided matings with other species was if you are able, to have the 'uneducated' male to watch a receptive and GENTLEman breed. I think it plausible that if the male has been isolated he wouldn't have a clue how to act, he would learn what to do and not to do in the wild because he would have seen such acts and witnessed the trials and triumphs of others. Possible?

 

[laurie]

That sounds like something that might work for some people. I only have 1 male and 2 female veiled. Who could he watch?

 

[ciafardo 4]

aja i dont think this is learned behavior im pretty sure these critters operate on instinct . Chams really aren't the smartest of the animal kingdom but i find they do learn to recognize a feeding cup and what it means when its put in their enclosure.

 

[ciafardo 4]

It does happen, reptile 'moonlighting' is normally more akin to rape. Examples like this though are the extreme end. Monitors can be quite vicious aswell, I have heard of males killing females. Im sure this is not deliberate, afterall it wont get to pass its genes, which is a step backward.
Such behaviour extremes are still largely a mystery.

Just curious, was there much difference in size at all? I think such a male would be eliminated from the gene pool by natural attrition anyway. I dont know if such a nasty behavioural trait is genetic or not, or just a freak.

Either way, its a fascinating observation. Sorry about your female, I hope she recovers.

jo the male was about the same size as the female he's not the biggest veiled and she was larger than mos.