Beetle Invasion

[Montezuma]

I have a fairly large garden in which I use to feed my countless herbivorous reptiles, lately I've been noticing an increase of Japanese Beetles. Has anyone ever fed their cham these beetles? I tried last night and my male jackson's eats them like there's no tomorrow. No chemicals are used on any of my crops.

 

[FaunaBgirl]

Lady bugs are poison to chams... makes me think the Japanese beetles would be too. But I could stand corrected..... anybody?

 

[Montezuma]

Well, I am guessing, since Japanese Beetles are in a totally different genus as lady birds (Lady bugs), then they should be edible. They are technically also gutloading themselves off our greenbeans.

 

[kinyonga]

One of my concerns would be with what the Japanese beetles were dining on before you got them and fed them to the chameleon....
http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?req....1603/0046-225X(2003)032[0873:CTOPSA]2.0.CO;2
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef409.asp
"Japanese beetles can feed on about 300 species of plants, ranging from roses to poison ivy."

 

[Montezuma]

They are technically also gutloading themselves off our greenbeans.

Not a huge concern.

 

[ChameleoG]

Can you get them year round?

I know of chameleons that have been fed one thing that they really liked and then suddenly the owner wasnt able to get them and the chameleon wouldnt eat anything else so it starved. If you can get them year round then sure but if you end up not being able to get them then i hope you dont have a picky chameleon. I'm not saying this will happen to your chameleon but you never know with such a fragile animal.

 

[Montezuma]

My male Jackson's isn' picky, he gets a wide variety of insects, from crickets to mealworms to roaches to pillbugs and on it goes.

 

[Tygerr]

I know of chameleons that have been fed one thing that they really liked and then suddenly the owner wasnt able to get them and the chameleon wouldnt eat anything else so it starved.

I find that extremely hard to believe.

 

[ChameleoG]

Common or not

Hey man i don't know how common it is i was just putting that out there i don't know if this is the only time its happened but i just was lettin montezuma know.