do chameleons yawn?

[jbrough42]

I'm sitting in my Chams room reading near his cage right now, I looked up to see what he was doing and he did something that looked exactly like yawning. He tilted his head back slightly, opened his mouth as wide as it would go for a second, and then closed it. I've never seen him do this before. He's a 4 month old veiled.

 

[i3uildabear]

Yes they do yawn when my friends see it yawn it scares my friends

 

[winterbones]

Mines does it every morning

They also do asimilar action when shedding to help the skin come off

 

[Mredhorse]

Good question!
IMO it is a territorial display with the males. I rarely see any of my females do it but daily with all the males.
I have Male Jax, Male Montium, and Male Veiled.

The reason I think it is a display is because there is a body shake that is done, during the open mouth, and have never heard air intake or escape.

I am sure others will chime in, but curious if Panthers do it also..

 

[TheHoff93]

Mines does it every morning

They also do a similar action when shedding to help the skin come off

when I saw my guy "yawn" before a shed it freaked me out! i thought something was wrong with him. He opened his mouth really wide and started wiggling his body and quivered a little bit. Took me a few weeks to get used to it.

 

[Milgro12]

Mine does every morning when I turn on his lights

 

[Olimpia]

All of mine do it occasionally, even when they're completely isolated from everyone else.

 

[NitroRoo]

Yep I've seen my female yawn, they can really open wide!

 

[Tay And A]

My male ambilobe does it when he's too hot.

 

[nj011908]

but curious if Panthers do it also..

My panther does it after eating sometimes

 

[TreyLcham]

Mines does it every morning

They also do asimilar action when shedding to help the skin come off

mine does it when the lights first turn on in morning but his yawns are really big his head moves in a circle like he opens him mouth and trys so hard to open as wide as possible lol its funny

 

[xcrystalx]

my boy yawns about 3 times a day xx

 

[jorgeduardo]

My little boy does too .. almost every time he eats . First time I thought something was wrong hehe

 

[fuzzhc]

My female panther sometimes does it not long after lights on

 

[Marshmallows mom]

My guy doesnt it in the morning and right before he falls asleep... the cutest thing!

 

[Shilohpsu]

Good question!
IMO it is a territorial display with the males. I rarely see any of my females do it but daily with all the males.
I have Male Jax, Male Montium, and Male Veiled.

The reason I think it is a display is because there is a body shake that is done, during the open mouth, and have never heard air intake or escape.

I am sure others will chime in, but curious if Panthers do it also..

My male veiled chameleon Herbert does the exact same thing every morning after turning on his lights. Within minutes, he'll let out a big yawn or two, puff all the way up, and then do the body shake where he curves it into an s shape for a brief second. We call the body shake his "war dance" and firmly believe it's a territorial behavior. My wife and I joke around about what he must be thinking.

1) wake up.
2) look really big and open my mouth to any other chameleons in the surrounding area that may be eyeing me or my house up (even though there aren't any)
3) curve my body a few times just in case they didn't get the message

He doesn't just do it in the morning, but will do it a few more times throughout the day whether he's in his cage or hanging out on top of it. I think that he's hoping that there's a female nearby so she can see how big he is, but if not, also a good time to warn off any rivals in the area. We love that he thinks that he's the dominant chameleon of these parts, and his attempts to remain alpha male cracks us up. He woke up from a nap on top of his cage, did his war dance, then I snapped this photo.