Invasive chameleons released from predation display more conspicuous colors....Jacksons chameleons...

[kinyonga]

"Released from predation, Hawaiian chameleons were less cryptic than Kenyan chameleons when threatened by both bird and snake predators. Hawaiian chameleons had higher luminance contrast against the local background to the visual system of the correspond- ing predator"...

https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.abn2415

 

[JacksJill]

Question to xanth owners/breeders - Have you ever had a clutch/litter that even came close to having 50 babies?

 

[kinyonga]

Question to xanth owners/breeders - Have you ever had a clutch/litter that even came close to having 50 babies?

No...Have you?

 

[JacksJill]

I haven't heard of a clutch that large but I don't really breed xanths.

 

[Mendez]

Question to xanth owners/breeders - Have you ever had a clutch/litter that even came close to having 50 babies?

I'm not a breeder ofc, but I have heard of people approaching the 40 to nearly 50 baby range from older females. In one of the chameleon academy episodes, I think when Bill talks to Sean McNeeley, they discuss how the clutches just get larger and larger with age which is why they only let a female xantholophus breed just a few times before retiring her. I couldn't tell you the episode number. Also, the number may have been closer to 40 babies than to 50 babies.

Why do you ask? Have you had a litter come close to 50?

 

[JacksJill]

I ask because in the article they use a clutch size of up to 50. I haven't bred or raised any clutches even near that size. I don't have much experience with xanth. My jacksonii jacksonii rarely get to 20 so I found 50 surprising and wondered how common that would be.

 

[kinyonga]

Clutch size...
"Females give birth to 10-30 live young after a gestation of 5-10 months"...
https://www.adcham.com/html/taxonomy/species/chjacksonixanth.html

"All Jackson’s chameleons are ovoviviparous, a live-bearing species that produces approximately 20 to 30 offspring per brood"...
https://reptilesmagazine.com/jacksons-chameleon-breeding/

Here you go...
"However, our maximum litter size of 21 is markedly smaller than the 50 reported by Mckeown (1996) and may be the result of our small sample size of 19 females from only two months, February and December. It is unstated what the sample size was for the earlier determination of clutch size range from Hawaii (Mckeown, 1996). Despite this result it is clear that the reproductive potential of C. jacksonii in Hawaii is quite high, consistent with the rapid expansion and high densities seen in that archipelago (Fk, unpubl. data)"...
https://www.thebhs.org/publications...i-i-squamata-chaemaeleonidae-from-hawaii/file

 

[JacksJill]

That sounds more like it.