Female panther panting

RedMountainHome

Established Member
Chameleon Info:
  • Your Chameleon - Female amibilobe panther, about 7 months old, I bought her about a month ago at a reptile show
  • Handling - Once or twice a week I take her out for a shower or visit to the outdoor cage with as little handling as possible.
  • Feeding - 1 or 2 appropriate sized dubias a day, with the occasional small superworm. Gutloading as always fresh greens or veggies of some sort.
  • Supplements - Dusting with repticalcium 2 out of 3 days, reptivite once every other week.
  • Watering - I use a mistking on a timer, 2 long mists a day with a couple shorter spurts to maintain humidty.
  • Fecal Description - Brown with a good amount of urate, not totally firm but not mushy either
  • History - She's a history of leaving her mouth slightly cracked though not showing any tongue.

Cage Info:
  • Cage Type - Custom built wooden frame with screen, roughly 3x2x4
  • Lighting - 125 watt Exoterra solar glo mercury lamp for heat and uvb which is only a couple weeks old, various other LED bulbs for plant growth.
  • Temperature - Ambient between 70 and 80 depending on outside temps and time of day, hottest (intentional) basking spot upper 80s. I have and use a variety of probes but the basking spot has stick-on dual gauge.
  • Humidity - Between 40% and 90% depending on location and last mist.
  • Plants - Mix of live and fake. Live include hibiscus, dracanae, pothos, schefflera, bamboo, and another one that I can't recall the name of.
  • Placement - Cage is in my office so there's only movement when I feed in the mornings and some when I get home at night. The vent is on the opposite wall and I do sometimes leave the ceiling fan on. The cage sites on the floor.
  • Location - Southeast US

Current Problem - I noticed recently that my female panther has been climbing on top of a temp / humidity gauge to get closer to the heat lamp. Her basking spot is on a branch with plenty of room to thermoregulate, the hottest spot being in the upper 80s. The temp gauge is a couple inches above that spot, and it gets into the mid 90s up where she climbs.

Today I noticed that she was laying on top of the gauge instead of perching on it, and that her mouth was wide open with her tongue exposed. She was very dark colored, like she was trying to soak up as much heat as possible. She's normally a good eater but she showed no interest when I offered her some food up there.
 
Chameleon Info:
  • Your Chameleon - Female amibilobe panther, about 7 months old, I bought her about a month ago at a reptile show
  • Handling - Once or twice a week I take her out for a shower or visit to the outdoor cage with as little handling as possible.
  • Feeding - 1 or 2 appropriate sized dubias a day, with the occasional small superworm. Gutloading as always fresh greens or veggies of some sort.
  • Supplements - Dusting with repticalcium 2 out of 3 days, reptivite once every other week.
  • Watering - I use a mistking on a timer, 2 long mists a day with a couple shorter spurts to maintain humidty.
  • Fecal Description - Brown with a good amount of urate, not totally firm but not mushy either
  • History - She's a history of leaving her mouth slightly cracked though not showing any tongue.

Cage Info:
  • Cage Type - Custom built wooden frame with screen, roughly 3x2x4
  • Lighting - 125 watt Exoterra solar glo mercury lamp for heat and uvb which is only a couple weeks old, various other LED bulbs for plant growth.
  • Temperature - Ambient between 70 and 80 depending on outside temps and time of day, hottest (intentional) basking spot upper 80s. I have and use a variety of probes but the basking spot has stick-on dual gauge.
  • Humidity - Between 40% and 90% depending on location and last mist.
  • Plants - Mix of live and fake. Live include hibiscus, dracanae, pothos, schefflera, bamboo, and another one that I can't recall the name of.
  • Placement - Cage is in my office so there's only movement when I feed in the mornings and some when I get home at night. The vent is on the opposite wall and I do sometimes leave the ceiling fan on. The cage sites on the floor.
  • Location - Southeast US

Current Problem - I noticed recently that my female panther has been climbing on top of a temp / humidity gauge to get closer to the heat lamp. Her basking spot is on a branch with plenty of room to thermoregulate, the hottest spot being in the upper 80s. The temp gauge is a couple inches above that spot, and it gets into the mid 90s up where she climbs.

Today I noticed that she was laying on top of the gauge instead of perching on it, and that her mouth was wide open with her tongue exposed. She was very dark colored, like she was trying to soak up as much heat as possible. She's normally a good eater but she showed no interest when I offered her some food up there.
Did you get this female at a reptile show in Charlotte nc by chance
 
Here ya go.
 

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The purple light is a led grow bulb. Looks weird at first but all of my plants reach for it ‍♂️
She doesn't have to sit there, she can go down into the hibiscus plant below there and still get partial light. That is where the light is strongest though.
 
Just because the light is reaching her doesn't mean she's getting the bennifits of the uvb. The uvb rays only penetrate a short distance from the bulb. The average 5.0 High Output bulb projects optimal uvb rays about 10-12" from the bulb, a 10.0 bulb stretches out about 20". Each bulb manufacture is different so look up the specs on your specific bulb.
 
OK, so putting 1 and 1 together to get 11, you folks think she may be getting too hot because she's trying to get close enough to soak up some UVB?

I was feeding her this afternoon and realized that what I previously disregarded as a bit of shmutz on her face is actually a bit of her lip missing! I looked at a picture from not long after I bought her and she did not have this when I bought her. Also, she did this weird thing with her lower lip where it looked to go all flimsy, then she straightened it back up. I'm going to upload a series of pics, including one from when she didn't have the bit missing from her lip. WTH is going on?
 
Here are some showing her lip hole...
 

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Here are some showing the flimsy lip, I noticed her do this a few times then go back to normal...
 

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Does 11= she has an infection and/or injury to her mouth that needs to be treated? and she's gaping because it doesn't feel right?
 
I have only seen her "pant" that one time, but since the day I brought her home she's often left her mouth "cracked" just a bit. No tongue hanging out, acting normally, just doesn't fully seal her lips. She's always been fairly lazy and doesn't walk around much, but she is alert during daylight hours and will typically move in a hurry if she's surprised or sees food.
 
Sounds like maybe some sort of infection going on. Whatever it is, she doesn't like it and it is bothering her. I would see a vet before she gets any worse. Make sure you show them all of your pictures, including her enclosure and husbandry conditions. They can look at it and make recommendations too.
 
The vet said that my female panther looks nice and healthy, with good bone strength and a healthy looking mouth. She couldn't say what caused the hole in my girls jaw or when, but it was likely some physical trauma and not an illness or infection. She also thinks she's been leaving her mouth cracked and doing weird things with it either a) from the pain, or b) from some congenital defect or previous injury that causes her jaw to not sit right. The vet sent me home with little syringes with minuscule amounts of pain meds that I'll feed her daily for about a week and instructions to come in for another appointment if she goes off her feed or the injury starts to look bad.

I took the opportunity to get my boy panther, Toby, checked out today as well. He was fairly well fired up and became the star of the office while he was out of his box, all the cute vet assistants came over to check him out ;) He got a clean bill of health as well, though I took home an admonishment to give him more hands-on time. I warned the vet that he can be really snappy and mean, but aside from a few hisses he was a perfect gentleman and made a perfect liar out of me... We couldn't even get him to gape so she could see inside his mouth, so we had to pry the little jerk's mouth open with a stick :cautious: :D

The only bad news is that the visit took a lot longer than I thought it would so I unexpectedly missed a half a day at work :\
 
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