yes, she tried.

[Monzon]

 

[DiF0r]

LOL seriously? Great picture.

 

[DavidBuchan]

Haha, is that the tongue retracting after failing to pick up a snail bigger than her head?

 

[Monzon]

Yes, she took a shot and that is the retraction moment. There are about 5 of these large snails in the enclosure. They produce about 50 -100 baby snails a month. The baby snails disappear fairly quickly. And I have several times seen a small cham march over an try to bite the head area of the large snails but of course with no success and no harm done to the snail.

 

[tkalawart]

so the chameleons are eating the baby snails? is that safe for their digestion with the shell?

 

[Reptar jr]

That's crazy, that must be one adventurous cham to go after such a large prey item. I didn't realize chams ate snails.

 

[Chameleonic]

Some species particularly like snails. Their shells have lots of Calcium, right?

 

[laurie]

Cute picture, brave little cham.

 

[okiroo]

awh shes wants that snail!

 

[Olimpia]

That's a great photo! Very ambitious little chameleon!

 

[Solid Snake]

Thats a great shot!
Ive fed snails to my jackson before.
It works out well I guess having them in there?
Do you provide any specific food for the snails to eat?
I want to do this!

 

[coldbloodedAL]

Thats a great shot!
Ive fed snails to my jackson before.
It works out well I guess having them in there.
Do you provide any specific food for the snails to eat?
I want to do this!

I am also wondering this, and is there a specific specie that should/ should not be fed? Id imagine most are fine, but i thought id ask.

To the OP.. that is a great pic!

 

[camimom]

Overachiever!

you shuld send her to me.... i do great with overachievers!

 

[ChamomilleCame]

Nice shot!! It's amazing!
Oh snails...

 

[Monzon]

Many chameleon species eat snails in the wild and they recognize them by sight even if the snail is sealed up and dormant. I feed all sorts of wild caught food items, but I do not feed wild caught snails. I collect only large snails (5-10) and put them into each enclosure. I sprinkle extra miner-all around the plant base and break open source-of-life Gold capsules. I also throw in organic salad greens sometimes. I estimate about 50-100 tiny snails hatch out of the soil throughout the month, each month. Some days I will see 5 or 10 tiny snails cruising around, then the next day, none. I have seen all sizes of chameleon track down and grab snails - they crush them up pretty quickly as they are about the size of a house fly. The caveat is that wild snails can host some fairly nasty pathogens (for humans at least) and I believe that they could probably bioaccumulate toxins and heavy metals in their shells but I am only guessing about the latter. So the large snails are meant to be too big to be eaten but I have still seen attempts such as the picture shown. So far, no health problems have been observed and I would say that snails end up only being an occasional, enrichment type feeder for my animals because production is not so great and there are always other choices available. These snails were collected in Ventura, California. I believe they are non-native, originally from the Mediterranean