Food chains
- Thread starter Kaizen
- Start date
PetNcs
Chameleon Enthusiast
I guess it is a dead end and hardly doubt it Can be a feasible thing thought that chameleons would go for gut content of the animals counting on them to deliver Partly
Digested gut content. With poor
And inconsistent gut content and food variability not even consisting always from insects but various and very different arthropodS and mollusks and vertebrates it is so so highly improbable that it is close to absurd
I would not invest in such research anything
That is my firm opinion
Let is better some
Feasible hypotheses than these fantasies that will
Never become a research topics and never will
Deliver any meaningful results
DocZ
Chameleon Enthusiast
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29232-w.pdf
Now I have to gutload my feeders under proper UVB
@Beman what’s the proper distance for UVB with discoid roaches gutloading in a plastic container, no lid
Now I have to gutload my feeders under proper UVB
@Beman what’s the proper distance for UVB with discoid roaches gutloading in a plastic container, no lid
And chameleon keeping leads to one more challenge!https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29232-w.pdf
Now I have to gutload my feeders under proper UVB
@Beman what’s the proper distance for UVB with discoid roaches gutloading in a plastic container, no lid
Last edited:
Kaizen
Chameleon Enthusiast
I see your point here, Petr. I wasn’t solely concerned about the gut contents, though. For instance, certain vitamins are stored in fatty tissue, the liver, and other organs such as the eyes. So, regardless of the gut contents of certain insects, it might still be useful to know a bit about what food items occur frequently in the diet of the insects our chameleons often prey upon. The idea would be something like this:
We know chameleons frequently consume insect x. We know insect x is a big consumer of plant y. We know plant y is chalk-full of nutrient z, and that insect x stores large amounts of nutrient z in its fatty tissue. If we thought nutrient z was important for chameleon health, that might be a good reason to try to deliver nutrient z to our chameleons somehow.
Hypothetically:
We know chameleons eat a lot of bees. We know bees are big consumers of nectar and pollen. We know pollen to contain a ton of nutrients, some of which (some of the carotenoids) are stored in their eyes. Say we know that certain carotenoids are crucial for any organism’s eye health (leutin, for example). Now we have a prima facie case for delivering leutin to our chameleons somehow.
This, in turn, suggests we ought to find someway of delivering bee pollen to our chameleons. Maybe this can be done with dusting and maybe by feeding our feeder insects pollen. Perhaps a combination of the two might be best, since we don’t know whether the insect’s own bodily processes make any contribution to the availability of the nutrients contained in the pollen. This is why I use bee pollen.
Personally I find this an interesting avenue of research, but as you know, I am no expert. Perhaps this line of thought is indeed fanciful, and I ought to forget about using bee pollen, since the thought process I used to arrive at pollen is silly. Or maybe there is some other reason I should base my pollen use on.
I did over simplify my cat example. Cats and dogs are members of the order Carnivora and are therefore, classified as carnivores. From a dietary perspective, dogs are more like omnivores and cats and other members of the suborder Feloidea are strict carnivores. Canines do not require high levels of taurine in their diet that felines do, presumably due to an evolutionary turning point.
I wish more was known about the digestion and absorption capabilities of chameleons. Things like relative intestine length and villus type and height for each species..
Differences within species even within a suborder can be enough to greatly effect drug absorption. Tigers, other large cats and domestic cats all require different dosages per pound. This might mean there would be differences among chameleon species as well.
I wish more was known about the digestion and absorption capabilities of chameleons. Things like relative intestine length and villus type and height for each species..
Differences within species even within a suborder can be enough to greatly effect drug absorption. Tigers, other large cats and domestic cats all require different dosages per pound. This might mean there would be differences among chameleon species as well.
lol These are numbers Bill Strand gave me when I needed to know exacts for a member that had a 5.0 without screen.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29232-w.pdf
Now I have to gutload my feeders under proper UVB
@Beman what’s the proper distance for UVB with discoid roaches gutloading in a plastic container, no lid
Bulb = Reptisun 5.0 T5 HO 24W, 22"
Fixture = Arcada ProT5
No screen filter
Top = UVI 32.7 (this is highly variable. don't worry about comparing this number to others.)
UVI 6 = 6"
UVI 3 = 10.5"
UVI 1 = 21"
PetNcs
Chameleon Enthusiast
Well,
Itnis hard to answer such complex issue.
I will be very candor, if you allow, please
No offense, I really try to andwer frankly and injectively and oresent my view as you requested
I think you overcomplicate the issues and set unrealistic expectations while thinking very complex but ignoring some very simple things as well as not really taking into account the physiology of digestion in insects and in vertebrates rer reptiles and last but not least ignoring the level of our knowledge and research on these chameleon-specific topics.
1. Digestion is a very complex process. Most of the swallowed substances are not digested in their original form but are broken down into very simple particles (like
Proteins into aminoacids and peptides, fats into fatty acids and monoglycerides, carbohydrates into monosacharides, even salts are not absorbed as salts but as ionts)... then the small molecules, that were made absorbable while making them Soluble in wayer mainly get to blood and few fat solubles get transported to lymph.
this is why the content of food does not mean the layman possible imagination, that what you feed, this can be used by the organism as is:
On contrary, most of the substances get totally destroyed and split and fragmented to very simple molecules,
out of which the organism itself then combines and synthesizes what it needs.
therefore, the content of the feeders as such is not that crucial as it anyway will be modified heavily. Yes and some substances like Vitamins or Provitamins and minerals can be absorbed as they are.
2. We know verY little about the food composition of wild chameleons and the imagination and beliefs are
Very limited and false. I meet almost every day almost an aggression when I say about the animals what they eat in the wild based on thousands of fecal samples I analyze every time I am in the field. I was even Attacked by the leader of one of the biggest UK groups that I should shut up and do not bother people with my observation from the nature because they are absolutely irrelevant due to the fact that people keep chameleons in captivity and not in the wild!
3. We feed them in captivity in vast and absolute majority with food, they do NOT eat in the wild and we do NOT provide them what they really eat.
4. We have problems to explain to people even basic
Logic of supplementation and even company based products certified on the market and sold In many cases provide terrible combinations or volumes or mutual relations of individual substances...
4. We tend to ignore bee pollen despite I have thousand times demonstrated its natural nature for chameleons. Still doubts and doubts Nd resistance and ironic and demeaning questions and criticism appears.
5. We have no clue how to Efficiently measure the health state of chameleons and how to harmlessly and Financially feasibly do blood tests to control at least basic biochemistry and levels
Of crucial vital metabolic substances in the organism
6. We have no means how to control the real content of the thousands of necessary
Nutrients in each and concrete bite and food item
And even food type
7. Because of 5 and 6 we have absolutely NO MEANS how to measure,
Control and adjust and
Monitor it
And I can continue
I have defined the main philosophy of
Naturalistic Chameleonoculture wnich I am
A Firm believer in
https://archaius.eu/_files/20000017...12-17 A breaktrough in captive management.pdf
and I will apply it to the nutrition Explicitly also in The following publications...
Let us FITST simulate as close as possible the situation in the wild enforcing the feeding of vital food components and eliminate harmful ones.
It includes mainly
- feeding proper insects
- not feeding unnatural and harmful insects
- feeding much smaller insects on average than what we do and in much bigger quantities (but smallEr total volumes)
- feeding pollen and calcium rich dust
- not hydrate by liquid water but peedominantly by natural fogging (not to cause osmotic shock,
Destruction of entericytes, dilution of digestive solutions etc)
- do not overfeed
- do not overheat
- add proper supplementation
- limit gut-loading to natural things and no not support gut-loading frenzy
And when we reach at LEAST this stage
Let us go deeper
PetNcs
Chameleon Enthusiast
It is. Wry hard to. Elieve these numbers
The intensity of light
Diminishes with square of the distance
Based on these numbers
Whe. The distance grows
3,5times (from
6 to 21”) the intensity diminishes 6times. Ut it shoud
Diminish more than 12 times
And whe. It becomes 1,75 times
More, it is 2 times less but it should ne 3
Times less
He sent me pics showing the ruler and the solarmeter 6.5 as well. I did not have a 5.0 bulb to test but it was very close to what I was seeing with a 6% arcadia in a single bulb t5HO fixture. My levels were a bit higher though with the arcadia bulb.
