desultadox
Established Member
Are these Veileds seriously different from any other Veiled? Why would that be? I can't imagine Florida making a better home to chameleons from Yemen...
Chameleon Catching
- Thread starter Chase
- Start date
desultadox
Established Member
Any idea why that is? Living in Florida my whole life hasn't turned me into a giant! I want whatever they're eating~
Nicodemayo
Avid Member
I think the fact that they free roam to go wherever they want, have a HUGE variety of insects, and are grown up under real sunlight and are exposed to real elements of weather make them a much larger chams than seen in activity. Im sure they're huge from yemen too.
Justin Carl
Avid Member
Josh at Lost Lake Chameleons as Wild Caught Veileds with monster casques.
I think a couple of them are 4+ inches.
He does have one that has a 6" casque, but I'm not sure if it is for sale.
He did mention to me that he may start a breeding project for lagre casqued Veileds.
So, I'm sure if he was to go forward with it this would be the sire.
I believe that the natural light and insect variation produces the large casques on the wild veileds.
If you do some searching on kingsnake, flchams, and lostlakechams you will see what I'm talking about.
Most of the Veileds being imported have very tall casques.
I have seen quite a few captives here on the site too.(kitty for example)
https://www.chameleonforums.com/like-veileds-look-beast-9263/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/2-frickin-massive-male-9071/
I think a couple of them are 4+ inches.
He does have one that has a 6" casque, but I'm not sure if it is for sale.
He did mention to me that he may start a breeding project for lagre casqued Veileds.
So, I'm sure if he was to go forward with it this would be the sire.
I believe that the natural light and insect variation produces the large casques on the wild veileds.
If you do some searching on kingsnake, flchams, and lostlakechams you will see what I'm talking about.
Most of the Veileds being imported have very tall casques.
I have seen quite a few captives here on the site too.(kitty for example)
https://www.chameleonforums.com/like-veileds-look-beast-9263/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/2-frickin-massive-male-9071/
Nicodemayo
Avid Member
6" casque? pics or shens 
Maybe josh will see this post and he'll post a pic
Maybe josh will see this post and he'll post a pic 
Chris Anderson
Dr. House of Chameleons
They are eating a lot of anoles and other prey items, get a ton of natural sunlight and can regulate their UVB and basking exposure. In captivity, they get cr@ppy nutrition, pretty poor artificial light and can barely regulate their UVB or basking exposure. CB veileds are pretty poor examples of the species in a lot of ways to be honest with you.
Good luck with your quest.
Chris
Eric Adrignola
Avid Member
Chris, I agree - that's all a factor. However, I know some people that raise their veileds the same way - just providing supplemental insects. The rest, they are living wild, in chicken wire cages and such. And after several genrations, they're still not huge.
I think, along with the above factors, the reason is selection.
We're probably seeing a very low survival rate from each clutch. Maybe these males are the only surviving members from their cluch, and their parents the same. After just a few years of this, only the biggest and strongest will survive. That aspect of natural selection happens very quickly with fast growing and breeding animals like veileds.
A good 14 years ago or so, I saw CB veileds at 24" very often. Suckers were bigger than any other chameleon I've seen save parsonii and overfed ousteleti - and were less than a year old! Then they started to disappear. They were raised without UVB and just fed repcal, and still got huge. They were all F1's, from massive WC stock.
That first few years of clutches in the high 80's (not temp, numbers) probably saturated the country with animals that wouldn't have made it in the wild.
I wonder if Florida will produce unusual,atypical veileds over time. I imagine the climate is FAR more favorable, and the predators more numerous. We'll see some 30 inchers in a few decades - hah!
When a species goes from a survival rate of maybe 10% to a rate(with breeding ) of nearly 100% (they were expensive, even for small ones), well, it's not hard to imagine!
That said, after I sell off some of my hold backs, I wanna get me one of these.
Might have to wait - got my wife pregnant again. hehe. Found out yesterday. It's kinda hard ot think about lizards when this happens!
Dankmeleon
New Member
the weak die off and the ones strong enough to live take the abuse and turn into real hardasses
desultadox
Established Member
By 2020 FL Veileds will be dining on small children.
Within our lifetime, they will become Earth's dominant species and teach us all to fear the tongue!!
Within our lifetime, they will become Earth's dominant species and teach us all to fear the tongue!!
Lost Lake Chameleons
New Member
The biggest had a measurement of 6.5 inches from bottom of the jaw to the top of his casque. He wasn't as mean as some of the others, but he was very old. He is not for sale. He is free ranging on my property now, living out his glory days comfortably.
The other day i caught him on the roof of my house.
The other day i caught him on the roof of my house.
Eric Adrignola
Avid Member
that's awesome man. I envy you there. Well, partly. I can't say I'd rather live in Florida, but I'd love to have my cake and eat it too. Live here in the Blue Ridg eMountains of NC, and have wild chameleosn running around. I'd love to have them things running around my property, but I cant' take the temps they require!
Any chance you have pics of more of these monsters, especially with somethign to show scale? The one you describe has a casque biger than I've ever seen. the biggest one I saw was a year old F1 at the white plains show in NY, he had a jaw to casque height of about 6".
I've been hoping for some monster veileds to show up in the local gene pool for a long time. I'll be sending you some money in the near future!
Any chance you have pics of more of these monsters, especially with somethign to show scale? The one you describe has a casque biger than I've ever seen. the biggest one I saw was a year old F1 at the white plains show in NY, he had a jaw to casque height of about 6".
I've been hoping for some monster veileds to show up in the local gene pool for a long time. I'll be sending you some money in the near future!
pedro92
New Member
Here is the link to Lost Lakes awesome VEILEDS
http://lostlakechameleons.com/veiled.html
I'm pretty sure there all WC but not for sure.
http://lostlakechameleons.com/veiled.html
I'm pretty sure there all WC but not for sure.
Nicodemayo
Avid Member
josh, some of those veileds you have advertised on kingsnake are wc arent they?
Lost Lake Chameleons
New Member
Nicodemayo
Avid Member
OO ok cause on your website they have ages listed and it doesn't mention wc.
Trace
Captain Awesome
They are an introduced species and deleterious to the native flora and fauna of Florida so they should be removed. I have no issue with people taking them! However, keeping the locality a BIG secret plus the marketing and profiting of said calyptratus seems a bit odd to me. I guess that's capitalism at it's best eh.
*shrugs*
Trace
*shrugs*
Trace
Eric Adrignola
Avid Member
Florida's ecosystem is now in such a state that it's difficult to call it natural.
The animals that cause harm are pests, the ones that are not damaging are non-native. It's just impossible to make any effort to remove them from the picture.
Problems: Large constrictors, venomous (yeah, king cobras are breeding in the wild in Florida... not good), varanids kill some endangered native species( burrowing owls in particular, have not been helped by Nile Monitors at All), non-native mammals tend to be the biggest problems, as far as animals are concerned.
The biggest issue is nonnative plants. Forget abo native animals when the plants are gone.
Things like chameleons and day geckos are really not hurting anything now. Veileds might eat green anoles if the brown anoles (invasives from cuba)hadn't overtaken them.
People want to keep it a secret for a number of reasons. They're neat. I'd like to keep them there, personally. I'd hate to see them exploited irresponsibly. Collect a few choice breeders here and there, for establishing a strong bloodline in captivity, excellent. Going out to pillage the trees and shrubs and selling them for "a quick buck," I dunno... doesnt' take any skill, so I don't really think it does anyone any good.
Veileds are very dear to me. I've kept them for about 15 years, and I think this might contribute to the betterment of the captive population. During the early days, a lot of damage was done to the gene pool. A few, choice, NATURALLY selected individuals, getting into the proper hands, might be the best thing for the species in captivity in a long time.
I am very selective with my breeders. I wont' breed most of my animals. Only one or two out of every clutch do I hold back - and that's if I hold any back. BAck when I first started to breed, people owuld have clutches of 60-80 regularly, and would hold ALL the females back to breed. In a year, they had 40 or so clutches hatching. They'd repeat it over and over. Thousands of babies per year. One clutch turns into 30-40 clutches in a year. Almost all of them end up reproducing. no selection at all.
In my current holdbacks, the size differential is amazing. I have two females that are twice the size of their clutch mates, save for one big male. And they've been separated for a logn time, so they're not simply eating all the food! Multiply that over generations, and you've got a tremendous loss in quality overall.
All it takes is some selection. NAtural selection is a lot more effective, because, face it, Mother Nature knows what she's doing - she's one heartless mamma. I want my animals to be strong, but I' not culling most of them like she's apt to do!
The animals that cause harm are pests, the ones that are not damaging are non-native. It's just impossible to make any effort to remove them from the picture.
Problems: Large constrictors, venomous (yeah, king cobras are breeding in the wild in Florida... not good), varanids kill some endangered native species( burrowing owls in particular, have not been helped by Nile Monitors at All), non-native mammals tend to be the biggest problems, as far as animals are concerned.
The biggest issue is nonnative plants. Forget abo native animals when the plants are gone.
Things like chameleons and day geckos are really not hurting anything now. Veileds might eat green anoles if the brown anoles (invasives from cuba)hadn't overtaken them.
People want to keep it a secret for a number of reasons. They're neat. I'd like to keep them there, personally. I'd hate to see them exploited irresponsibly. Collect a few choice breeders here and there, for establishing a strong bloodline in captivity, excellent. Going out to pillage the trees and shrubs and selling them for "a quick buck," I dunno... doesnt' take any skill, so I don't really think it does anyone any good.
Veileds are very dear to me. I've kept them for about 15 years, and I think this might contribute to the betterment of the captive population. During the early days, a lot of damage was done to the gene pool. A few, choice, NATURALLY selected individuals, getting into the proper hands, might be the best thing for the species in captivity in a long time.
I am very selective with my breeders. I wont' breed most of my animals. Only one or two out of every clutch do I hold back - and that's if I hold any back. BAck when I first started to breed, people owuld have clutches of 60-80 regularly, and would hold ALL the females back to breed. In a year, they had 40 or so clutches hatching. They'd repeat it over and over. Thousands of babies per year. One clutch turns into 30-40 clutches in a year. Almost all of them end up reproducing. no selection at all.
In my current holdbacks, the size differential is amazing. I have two females that are twice the size of their clutch mates, save for one big male. And they've been separated for a logn time, so they're not simply eating all the food! Multiply that over generations, and you've got a tremendous loss in quality overall.
All it takes is some selection. NAtural selection is a lot more effective, because, face it, Mother Nature knows what she's doing - she's one heartless mamma. I want my animals to be strong, but I' not culling most of them like she's apt to do!
