Skinny panther?

[leet13]

Hi all. My panther seems to be on the skinny side. Looks like I can see ribs or indents where the ribs are near his hind legs.

He has plenty of crickets in his feeder cup... he gets worms as treats... it just seems like he is eating but not gaining weight from eating.

He is getting enough water and food... urates are a white color without any orange or yellow.

When I got him, he was about the side of my thumb. He has grown but not filled out.

He is about 8.5 to 9 months old. will he start filling out as he gets older?

 

[Alexl]

It's totally normal to see the ribs, the hip and the tips of the vertebrae of a chameleon, even in a completely overfed one. He will never be "filled out". There's no fat tissue under their skin above, so they can't store any fat as mammals do on belly and hips. Chameleons have special abdominal fat pads you can't see from the outside. Here's a picture of huge ones from the autopsy of a fat Chamaeleo calyptratus.

You hardly can judge a chameleon's perfect weight only by looking at it. Muscles in casque and on tail base begin to store fat if the chameleon can't store anymore inside his abdominal fat pads, the casque then bulges out and the tails begins to become completely round shaped at the base. But at this stage, organs mostly got damaged yet (fat liver, renal failure...) - so your chameleon should never get that fat. I've uploaded pictures to compare casque sizes in this thread.

For further information about chameleon feeding, read this thread or even this one. There are lot of keepers who first thought they shouldn't see the ribs of their pets and therefore unfortunately overfed their little guys. That's something very special about keeping reptiles.

 

[Kate]

They usually stay quite skinny till they are fully grown. 18-24 months. Then they start to fill out a bit. By about a year they stop eating as much and can be fed every second day.

 

[pssh]

They do fill out a little when they are 18+ months old, but not like a mammal would. You will still see their ribs and other bones. The best way to determine if the animal is growing well is to weight him every week or so on a cheap kitchen scale. For me, to check if an animal is getting too fat visually, I look at the casque, the cheeks, the tail, and sort of at the hips (though the hips dont get thick/fat like the tail and casque do, so you kind of need experience with several animals to know what I am talking about. They only get really sunken in/extra bone-y looking when they are really underweight.) If the casque, tail, and cheeks are sunken in and hollow looking, the animal is either under weight or severely dehydrated (or both.) If the casque, cheeks, and tail are very round/thick/fat looking then the animal is overweight. The thread that Alexl posted showing the difference between a healthy casque and a fat casque are a good way to check.

 

[LazardLizard]

.... Agree with all above

 

[leet13]

Thanks everyone for the replies! I really appreciate it. Going to check out those links now.