Guess the species – one day old hatchling
- Thread starter roo_71
- Start date
Will Hayward
New Member
Short of breath...Zerah Morris
New Member
Awesome stuff Roo. Congratulations on the accomplishment! Looks incredible!
Dave Weldon
Avid Member
Howdy Roo,
It's a chameleon
! Congratulations on whatever it is
. I cracked open Necas' stump-tailed chameleons book for the first time a minute ago and realized, to the untrained eye, they all look alike to me
.
Chris Anderson
Dr. House of Chameleons
Ohh wow roo! Congrats! I'm going to have to come over and take some pics this weekend I think. I call dibs on the first you have that you don't hold back!
Quite an achievement there, nicely done! Aren't the gular spines incredible?!?!
Chris
Quite an achievement there, nicely done! Aren't the gular spines incredible?!?!
Chris
roo_71
New Member
They ARE pretty cool, I have three that have hatched and one was poking out of the egg this morning so hopefully I will have another (1 from one clutch and 3 from another) when I get home.
Out of the three diff. clutches (oddly enough all hatching on the same day and pretty much laid within days of one another) I have what I will assume 4 of them. Unfortunately 4 eggs sweat and slit but the babies were dead. I think one clutch will fail completely too – adding another 2 dead. It took pretty much 2 months (give or take a day or two) for them to hatch.
I am pretty disappointed with the results so far. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong or at least a solid answer to the cause of the dead ones. I have the exact same problem with temporalis eggs too. The eggs grew quite nicely and I was pretty good about keeping within the temp range discussed in the stump-tail book. A few instances I did go over the temp range a few degrees and also recall that the book mentioned to really avoid that. So maybe that’s a possibility. A couple of the females were fresh imports too – so there’s another possibility. I guess I should just be stoked to have what I have. If I can at least put together a CB group then I will consider it a success.
Still have a 4th clutch of three which is expected to hatch in another 40 days or so. Should have been 4 eggs though (damn you pill bugs!!).
-roo
Out of the three diff. clutches (oddly enough all hatching on the same day and pretty much laid within days of one another) I have what I will assume 4 of them. Unfortunately 4 eggs sweat and slit but the babies were dead. I think one clutch will fail completely too – adding another 2 dead. It took pretty much 2 months (give or take a day or two) for them to hatch.
I am pretty disappointed with the results so far. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong or at least a solid answer to the cause of the dead ones. I have the exact same problem with temporalis eggs too. The eggs grew quite nicely and I was pretty good about keeping within the temp range discussed in the stump-tail book. A few instances I did go over the temp range a few degrees and also recall that the book mentioned to really avoid that. So maybe that’s a possibility. A couple of the females were fresh imports too – so there’s another possibility. I guess I should just be stoked to have what I have. If I can at least put together a CB group then I will consider it a success.
Still have a 4th clutch of three which is expected to hatch in another 40 days or so. Should have been 4 eggs though (damn you pill bugs!!).
-roo
Will Hayward
New Member
Pill bugs and sow bugs... Man, did that experiment ever go wrong. Cost me 4 breeder chameleons they did. And who knows how many brev eggs (I dont dig em up, just find babies).
Roo, Ill take CB R.Temps from you. I like them (WCs), but I have not had success with them (although pillbugs were the bane of 2). I have one gravid lone female left... I think shes gravid.
Roo, Ill take CB R.Temps from you. I like them (WCs), but I have not had success with them (although pillbugs were the bane of 2). I have one gravid lone female left... I think shes gravid.
Chris Anderson
Dr. House of Chameleons
roo,
Anyone who thinks they never have room for improvement shouldn't have any contact with a living animal. Have you considered one of the heating/cooling refrigerator type incubators that I have? You'd have to change a lot of what you're doing with regard to water in the substrate, etc., but with the number of brev eggs you have, you could probably figure out the optimal mix fairly easily and it might help in the future with any temp fluxuations. They aren't all that expensive either. That said, you've done a hell of a job and you should be proud of it, IMO. Keep up the good work!
Chris
Anyone who thinks they never have room for improvement shouldn't have any contact with a living animal. Have you considered one of the heating/cooling refrigerator type incubators that I have? You'd have to change a lot of what you're doing with regard to water in the substrate, etc., but with the number of brev eggs you have, you could probably figure out the optimal mix fairly easily and it might help in the future with any temp fluxuations. They aren't all that expensive either. That said, you've done a hell of a job and you should be proud of it, IMO. Keep up the good work!
Chris
roo_71
New Member
So the final count from the 3 B. superciliarus clutches was 7 (3 /4), one clutch of 4 was totally bad. All are active and I hope all make it.
Will,
I find it very hard to believe that pill bugs killed your pygmies. They are not an aggressive isopod and tend to stick with dead/decaying matter. I would say that they just died and that the pill bugs were on the scene to clean up – and they do a good job and are pretty fast at it. I have tons of pill bugs in my enclosures and have never had a problem with them except with brookesia eggs. The brooks always tend to lay them just under some moss – so it’s easy for the pills to get at them. Brev eggs are fairly safe since they are at least 1.5 inches in the dirt … and I dig most of them up.
WC brevs just don’t last from my experience and you would be lucky to keep them for a year. Most of the time they just drop dead or start losing weight then dead a week later. I have had several get mouth infections and just never recover from it – even with meds. Not to get too far off topic, but I am guessing that mouth infections are from cricket parts. ALL the infections were around the gum line so that would make sense a bit with a cricket part getting jammed up there allowing bacteria to get in. Either that or their environments are a bit too dirty. Or it’s something else, I can only speculate.
-roo
Will,
I find it very hard to believe that pill bugs killed your pygmies. They are not an aggressive isopod and tend to stick with dead/decaying matter. I would say that they just died and that the pill bugs were on the scene to clean up – and they do a good job and are pretty fast at it. I have tons of pill bugs in my enclosures and have never had a problem with them except with brookesia eggs. The brooks always tend to lay them just under some moss – so it’s easy for the pills to get at them. Brev eggs are fairly safe since they are at least 1.5 inches in the dirt … and I dig most of them up.
WC brevs just don’t last from my experience and you would be lucky to keep them for a year. Most of the time they just drop dead or start losing weight then dead a week later. I have had several get mouth infections and just never recover from it – even with meds. Not to get too far off topic, but I am guessing that mouth infections are from cricket parts. ALL the infections were around the gum line so that would make sense a bit with a cricket part getting jammed up there allowing bacteria to get in. Either that or their environments are a bit too dirty. Or it’s something else, I can only speculate.
-roo
Will Hayward
New Member
I don't think you understand.
Agressive or not, the Chameleons weren't dead when the pill/sowbugs were eating them, they were sleeping. It happened over several nights. They tended to eat the eyelids of the chameleons, though other parts were 'attacked' as well. During the day I was able to see the wounds, and the chameleons eyes were swollen with the openings of the eyelid skin enlarged.
I know they killed two temporalis. I am 85% sure they killed one brev, and I assume they killed the second brev in question.
Heika
New Member
Will...
I find it very difficult to believe as well. Many herpers keep isopods, including frog keepers. I hunted the internet looking for anything that would substantiate your story and couldn't find anything stating that isopods even bite in self defense. It would seem that frogs would be more susceptible to an attack than a chameleon, but no one has complained of it.
Another reason I struggle with this is because, if I witnessed any insect eating one of my chameleons, I would immediately remove the chameleons from the enclosure and clean out the tank. End of the chameleon-eating insects. Since you claim 4 of yours were eaten.. why did you wait?
Are you sure that your chameleons didn't just have eye infections? I have had a couple with eye infections now, and their eye openings do become enlarged because of it. To treat the problem, I mist more and use an antibiotic eye cream from the vet.
Heika
I find it very difficult to believe as well. Many herpers keep isopods, including frog keepers. I hunted the internet looking for anything that would substantiate your story and couldn't find anything stating that isopods even bite in self defense. It would seem that frogs would be more susceptible to an attack than a chameleon, but no one has complained of it.
Another reason I struggle with this is because, if I witnessed any insect eating one of my chameleons, I would immediately remove the chameleons from the enclosure and clean out the tank. End of the chameleon-eating insects. Since you claim 4 of yours were eaten.. why did you wait?
Are you sure that your chameleons didn't just have eye infections? I have had a couple with eye infections now, and their eye openings do become enlarged because of it. To treat the problem, I mist more and use an antibiotic eye cream from the vet.
Heika
Will Hayward
New Member
Do you not remember us chatting about me collecting them in mass quantities and trying to breed them? Well it worked, they promptly overrun the tanks. At first I didn't think any harm would come of it. The tanks were clean and the plants healthy. No dead crickets rotting, and the soil was freah and without mold
I had my suspiscions aswell just as you do, which is why I did not make any changes immediately... by the time I finally decided to act it was too late, the 2 temporalis were two far gone. The days following I took care to watch the brev tank. I suppose since it was a much larger enclosure and there were far far fewer bugs in this one, that it took longer before I found the sleeping male covered with half a dozen large adults and a few smaller ones. I flicked them off him and woke up once more in the night to do it again. I was about to change out the tank the next day but daily life prevented it. The nex day I looked in the tank and found the male dead, and a second female (unsure of cause of death).
What good do I receive for making it up? SURE the eyes may have been infected, but the sowbugs were still eating away at the infected eyes then.
Fate X
New Member
i could beleive they killed them because one time i watched one of my cages for about a half hour at night there was about 8-9 crickets left in it and they were all over my veiled ,once the lights go off these bugs are monsters it looked like the crickets were nibbling at my veiled thats why i almost always remove any leftovers before the light goes off,i might leave 1-2 but the rest get removed as they get vicious at night.
roo_71
New Member
That’s pretty messed up Will. I don’t doubt that they were nibbling on them since you saw them in the act. I once saw one nibbling on the mouth of a brev, but the mouth area was very infected. Never seen them do that other wise. I wonder if they were attracted to the eyes for some reason (as Heika mentioned) – maybe they didn’t have anything else to eat. I usually leave poop in the tanks for the pills, springtails and snails. Sorry you had a bad experience with them. I will certainly note your experience too. Keep in mind that the majority of my pills are the orange Spanish kind – but I do have some in there I collected outside.
-roo
-roo
Pill bugs and sow bugs eat decaying plants and animals.
If there was any area that was infected it wouldn't surprise me that they would nibble on those areas too and I wouldn't be surprised if they would nibble on dying animals too or maybe even animals that are still?not moving.
Here are some sites that talk about what they will eat....some seems to be conflicting...
http://www.pestcontrolcanada.com/INSECTS/pill_bugs_sow_bugs.htm
"Some may eat live plants but pill bugs and sow bugs are only able to chew very tender shoots.."
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache...+AND+"dying+animals"&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1
"Scavengers of dead and dying organisms"
If there was any area that was infected it wouldn't surprise me that they would nibble on those areas too and I wouldn't be surprised if they would nibble on dying animals too or maybe even animals that are still?not moving.
Here are some sites that talk about what they will eat....some seems to be conflicting...
http://www.pestcontrolcanada.com/INSECTS/pill_bugs_sow_bugs.htm
"Some may eat live plants but pill bugs and sow bugs are only able to chew very tender shoots.."
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache...+AND+"dying+animals"&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1
"Scavengers of dead and dying organisms"
Will Hayward
New Member
Well then, it is possible there were infections... as I said, the tank had been overrun by them, they were breeding too fast! And as you suggest, maybe they ran out of decaying matter to eat and moved to the Moist eyes and mouth areas of the residents.
I collected all mine from outdoors. Not sure the species, but there are a dozen or so Pillbug species in North America alone, and then some sowbug species aswell. I'd try to figure them out, but Ion't know of any good photoreferences. I probably had two species of Pill bugs, one a dark black which seems to be fairly common in photos, and the other looking the exact same, but a dark brown. Then there was a black sow bug species and a grey-white sow bug species.
As for them eating dead or dying animals, sure enough, I wasn't having any success whatsoever keeping the temporalis anyway!!! some had already died, so next time they come in Ill have to refine my care and try and follow Necas/Wolfgangs instructions more religiously. But to quote someone: "The true experience of anyone who claims to a chameleon expert can be measured in how many they have killed. The higher the number, the more expert they are"
I Just wish I had more expertise in keepin 'em alive and not finding out what kills 'em!
I do love the springtails though, I'll keep buying them each expo we have and adding them in. Lately I havent really noticed them in the tanks, so I assume I need to replenish them every couple months.
I havent done much with snails, and I always ake out the nasty terrarium slugs wen I find them.
