Before the peeling of the skin, a shedding can be identified by your chameleon seeming to get cloudy. The colors will be muted. This is the start of the skin separating from the body. The shedding skin will soon break in places and start the peeling off.
This female panther chameleon is showing a very rare sight – the beginnings of the shedding process before a breach in the old skin is made. You can see the old skin being separated from the new skin underneath. Breaches in the old skin now show through around the shoulder area and the lower flank.
By jeff england true chameleons of the old world are a very unusual collection of lizards, who exhibit a number of bizarre adaptations. To an extent, these adaptations are key to the lizards’ popularity, but it also means that these lizards are more challenging for keepers to maintain than many other types of lizards. One great example is the shedding process. Chameleons shed in much the same way than other lizards do, but because of their elaborate habitat and husbandry needs, shedding difficulties are common. And while a single poor shed is generally not a huge problem, repeated shedding problems can lead to issues. https://www.wikihow.com/Take-Care-of-a-Chameleon
Like other reptiles, chameleons grow. Unlike their relatives, however, chameleons have a thin, transparent top layer of skin that plays an important role in their ability to change colors. This top layer of skin does not stretch with the chameleon as it grows. As this reptile’s body grows larger, this layer of skin begins to shed away. Baby chameleons grow quickly. Due to this rapid growth, younger chameleons shed their skin more often. Every 3 to 4 weeks, a growing chameleon’s skin will stretch then flake away. This shedding process allows the thin layer of skin that does not stretch to be replaced with a fresh layer more suited to the chameleon’s current size.
Shedding skin in chameleons
For chameleons, a shedding residue may become dangerous when an arm, a leg, a toe, or the tail is surrounded completely. If this residue is not removed manually, it will dry out and shrink, while the chameleon continues growing. The ring-shaped shedding residue constricts the living tissue and cuts off blood supply, so the tissue behind the ring will die.
In the worst case, a chameleon can lose an extremity or its tail due to this process. Additionally, a shedding residue offers an ideal breeding ground for bacteria and fungus with the small gap between old and new skin that is always a little humid a pretty warm under the cage’s heat lamps.,p>
As an affiliate, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases. We get commissions for purchases made through links on this website from amazon and other third parties. Shedding skin is part of many a reptile’s life and chameleons aren’t exempt from this. When i first saw my chameleon do it i felt a mixture of amazement, anxiety and sympathy. Sure it may look like it’s turning into a mummy with peeling skin but a chameleon shedding is nothing to be alarmed about. Chameleons shed their skin to renew old skin cells, to keep themselves clean and to accommodate growth.
Chameleons grow for a lifetime. Since their skin cannot grow with them, they have to shed it from time to time. This process is called molting or shedding. The anatomical term is ecdysis, derived from the ancient greek ἐκδύω (ekduo), which means “to strip”. This is a nice way to describe the process: the chameleon removes its old skin during the shedding process like old clothes and keeps the new “clothes” on.
When a chameleon refuses to eat
Keeping healthy sometimes a chameleon just refuses to eat. This is normal, sometimes the chameleon just does not feel its best or something happened that temporarily causes it to refuse to eat. You should not worry about this. A chameleon can easily handle two or three days of not eating anything without harmful effects. Just be sure that it does drink. When your chameleon refuses to eat for longer periods of time there could be a more serious underlying problem. It can still survive for weeks without eating, but there should be a reason why it is refusing.
With the advent of the new range of habistat glass tanks we are now happy to recommend the larger sizes of habistat tank as a viable option for a yemen chameleon. Glass is the most expensive option and these larger tanks are very heavy, but glass holds heat better than mesh (less so than wood, but chameleons are not high temperature species), and holds humidity the best of all three options. Whilst you can’t modify your enclosure for ventilation the way you can in wood, and it has far less ventilation than a mesh cage, the habistat enclosures do have open topped mesh lids and we find the ventilation adequate.
Chameleons should never be kept in a glass terrarium or aquarium. They need the ventilation that a mesh enclosure provides. Fine metal or fiberglass mesh is not recommended but pvc-coated hardware cloth is good. Vertical space is essential and a cage size of 36 inches by 24 inches by 36 to 48 inches tall is recommended (the bigger and taller the better). Chameleons like to climb high up off the ground to the height is of utmost importance. An outdoor cage can be used when the weather is warm enough, as long as overheating is prevented. Cleanliness in the cage is vital to preventing bacterial or mold growth.