My ugly duckling....

jajeanpierre

jajeanpierre

Chameleon Enthusiast
I sure hope he turns into the proverbial swan! Trioceros quadricornis gracilior hatched mid March. I have never produced such a sad looking ugly little baby. Up until today, he was an insipid brown color (second picture), but today, thankfully, his mother's blues started to show. His mother is drop dead gorgeous, and his father is very striking with a gorgeous set of horns. If I didn't know any better I would think one of @jpowell86 's Trioceros cristatus had snuck into Mama's cage. @bobcochran, pretty sad isn't he.

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I think he looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings in the picture below. Or maybe Putin. I always though Gollum looked like Putin.
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How could two such beautiful animals produce him? His mother is the most beautifully colored gracilior I have ever seen.
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This is fast becoming one of my favorite chams. I wish you the best of luck with your breeding efforts. Perhaps a few years down the road after I gain a lot of experience with cham husbandry, I will own one of these beautiful creatures.

I think Gollum would be a wonderful name for him. It sure is fitting!
 
Scottsquatch said:
This is fast becoming one of my favorite chams. I wish you the best of luck with your breeding efforts. Perhaps a few years down the road after I gain a lot of experience with cham husbandry, I will own one of these beautiful creatures.

I think Gollum would be a wonderful name for him. It sure is fitting!
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The name is fitting, isn't it? Originally I was calling him Cristatus because he reminded me of a Trioceros Cristatus, a favorite species of my friend @jpowell86. I find cristatus incredibly ugly but appealing for their ugliness. After a year of Joel trying to win me over to the species, I decided to get a male whenever I have enough cage space so calling him Cristatus was not going to work. Gollum it is.

Don't delay getting one of these because you never know if they will be available in a few years. It won't take much for the species to be gone from the US since I'm the only breeder of them.
 
I am much too new to the cham game to try anything that isn't common. I have kept a lot of reptiles but I would just kill myself if I had one of the more uncommon chams in the trade and somehow messed up leading to harm. I think I'll get more experience with panthers and cham husbandry in general before I move on to any montane species. Have they stopped importing quads to the US for now? I saw something awhile back about stopping imports from Tanzania.
 
He's cute for sure (got that in common with Gollum in that awkward way) maybe he will be a late blood and be that wonderful surprise.
 
Wait a second. Are the quads from Cameroon? Now that I think about it, they are not from Tanzania are they? Doh! I think I might be mixing up my species. I have so much to learn! Either way T. Quadricornis gracilior and the quads in general are on my list. I also really like T. Johnstoni and I know they are a montane species. Lol
 
Scottsquatch said:
Do your gracilior have the red claws? I have heard they don't all exhibit this trait.
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Yes, they have red claws. Some are darker than others. It takes awhile for their red claws to develop. The red comes and goes based on health and mood. It is actually blood.

Don't be afraid to try a less common species. When they were imported in large quantities from Cameroon back in the 90s, the importer would feed the "common" quad babies to the rare Veileds. (No, I'm not telling who the importer was!)

There won't be any more imports for a long long time--if ever--as far as I can tell and I am friends with the importer.

This is a very forgiving species if you give them the minimum they require--reasonably cool and lots of humidity. They are really hardy, too. Don't be afraid to learn on something like a quad or a gracilior, just avoid a wild caught. I had owned my first chameleons (Veileds, of course) for a grand total of six weeks before I bought my first wild-caught quad. Two weeks later, I bought another newly imported wild-caught quad. I still have both those animals.

They ARE a good chameleon for a novice and not very expensive, either.
 
Gollum is a good name for him now but I don't think it will suit him in a little while.I bet he gets to be as gorgeous as his parents.
 
But.....but I think he's cute. Like when you see a child and you think get away from me but then it says something weird and borderline cryptic and you think, "eh you're not so bad."
 
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