Jackson Chameleon dark color

[SilverWolf]

I might put this in the health clinic forum but I just want to ask her first. My Jackson Chameleon, 4 month old male, was fine and eating before I left for school. When I came home, he was basking, and dark quite dark. A very dark brown, but mainly underneath him, or halfway down. Then when I put his feeding cup in there he went back to his normal light brown color. After eating, he went back to basking and is now that dark brown again. He is dark brown really on his whole body but it is darker on his lower boy and then down to his tail. Also it appears he has very very few, hardly noticeable, dark spots. Is this just to absorb more heat? his basking site (I need to get an actual digital thermometer) is about 85 degrees. The rest is room temperature, 72 - 75 degrees and at night time it is 62 degrees. He's eating fine, and I see him drinking. Actually he shot his tongue to get a water droplet, lol I think it was because he reasoned he couldn't get there fast enough or moving there would cause the drop to fall. All temperatures are fahrenheit.

 

[ItsSinJin]

It's no biggie buddy you're right about turning dark to absorb more heat! My panther does the exact same thing and as soon as he's out from under the light he goes right back to normal.
Sometimes I see him almost leaning sideways and flattening out his body just to get as much light as possible

 

[SaintJimmy]

Assuming you have a dial thermometer, it's probably reading inaccurately and he MAY be too cold.

However, this may not be the case. Buy a digital thermometer or a thermometer laser gun before you go upping the wattage on his basking bulb.

It might be something stressing him out. Have you had more time with handling him lately? Were you wearing bright colors? Did you change the layout of the room?

 

[SilverWolf]

No there was nothing out of the ordinary. And definitely haven't been handling him lately, although I am still working on getting him accustomed to my hand so he can come out of his enclosure during cleaning and go outside for natural sunlight without stressing. I don't handle him at all right now.