The Puffer Forum

Jose your terrarium looks excellent .... but can I just make a suggestion? If you get a pair of pygmies (male + female) then I would deepen your substrate. They say it should be about 4" deep for laying eggs. Just thought I would add that. Otherwise I think your set-up looks great. Do you have a spray bottle for spraying the chams? I can't wait to hear what you've gotten at the show, hope you come home with a couple of pygmies!

I seen my girl had changed her colours yesterday. She was towards the front and she was a dark green, like an olive green. Up until yesterday I hadn't seen them any colour but shades of brown. She got excited when she seen food and went to move and nearly fell. She grabbed a leaf on her way down, and then came back up and I think she was trying to get over her near fall. Must have scared her. They are so delicate, those little legs are so small.

I fed them the small crickets last night. Those little buggers are hard to deal with, they pop around. When I shook some out of the container, a couple of millipede looking insects came tumbling out with them. I went ahead and dusted them with the vitamin powder and put them in the terrarium, but I hope they aren't something that will hurt my pygmies. I thought I read they will eat most insects, but with them being so small I tend to worry about insects biting them. I don't think I will add them in again if there happens to be more in the container.

Ok, substrate thickened, pygmies are in. Only 2 vendors had pygmies and the one guys didnt look very healthy and could tell me nothing about them. So I went with the seemingly knowledgable guy who had about a dozen of them and agreed to a good price if I purchased a male and female. Heres my problem...I think he gave me two males. I picked them out and showed him the ones I wanted and I dont know for sure that he got the right ones. It was so crowded and you were near constantly getting jostled around when he handed me the containers I only thought of getting them to safety and bolted toward the exit. I will have to keep a close eye regardless for a while.
Heres the little guy.

And the larger of the two was supposed to be a female. I'm not so certain.

Wow, really good photos of them! Glad you were able to get some. Okay, well the first photo definitely reminds me of a male, with the longer tail .... but I am uncertain with the 2nd and 3rd photo. What you want to look for is colouring around the eyes. If they both seem to have colour around the eyes, then you might be right. The tail of a female should be much shorter, and the female should be much larger than the male. Mine girly is fat compared to my boy.
What species did you get, they appear a bit different from my Rhampholeon brevicaudatus, or bearded pygmy chameleons. If they are both males, hopefully they are still adolescents and you will have enough time to either get another terrarium, or trade for a female. But hopefully you've got a male and female. With mine, you can see the differences immediately, there's no mistaking who's who. If you are really uncertain, upload some photos to a reptile forum and see what they think, someone should be able to help you.
Your photos are really great. Wish I could get some good shots like that of mine. My female keeps going up and hanging upside down from the screen on the top. I did get one shot of her on the screen .... let me see if I can get it on here

The one in the second and third pic is definately larger and fatter. I was just scrutinizing them a couple minutes ago, the littler of the two still has a longer tail than the big one. Maybe I'm ok. I've narrowed it down to three- Rieppeleon brachyurus or beardless, Rieppeleon kerstenii or Rhampholeon temporalis. They are so close I'm not certain which. The seller merely had them as dwarfs. Lots more reading and searching to do. The larger of the two has a very noticable point on its nose.

I really hope that you've got yourself a male + female pair, that would be excellent. I'm afraid that I don't know the species well enough to hazard a guess as to what you've got. This is all still new to me. I'm just glad that I've not got any issues with mine so far. I am a little worried though because supposedly the UK is looking to have one of the hottest summers yet -- and that is not good news. I would rather it be cooler than hotter, and I will be worrying if it does get hot because the houses do not have air conditioning, so it's going to be down to a fan to keep my little ones cool enough. I really hate to think about it actually .... but maybe the weatherman will be wrong, it's happened before.

Yeah, the species is a rough guess at this point but I'm pretty certain its one of those three. I did put a substrate heater on mine as well cuz my little ones are in a finished basement. It always stays alot cooler down here. As for summer, we have central air...again, it'll be way cool down here. If you do have a hot summer I would consider a window unit or once again, I highly recommend reading the post above if you didnt. She goes into detail about keeping hers cool in summer with no ac in a worst case scenario. Oh and the weatherman..... round these parts he is always wrong. The saying in ohio is, if you dont like the weather.....wait ten minutes. Lol.

What post are you talking about ?

A window unit in England is outrageously expensive, the husband will never go for it, besides, we don't have the sort of windows like you have in America, so a basic a/c unit would never work here. I am thinking about a ceiling fan though, that might improve the air temperature a bit. If not, I will just have to hope the fan works and lots of spraying.

Sorry, its on the last page. Here it is again http://www.chameleonnews.com/?page=article&id=46 Yeah, the species is a rough guess at this point but I'm pretty certain its one of those three. I did put a substrate heater on mine as well cuz my little ones are in a finished basement. It always stays alot cooler down here. As for summer, we have central air...again, it'll be way cool down here. She goes into detail in that post about keeping hers cool in summer with no ac in a worst case scenario. Oh and the weatherman..... round these parts he is always wrong. The saying in ohio is, if you dont like the weather.....wait ten minutes. Lol.

Edit: Had to take some more pics.
You can see em both here. The little one crawled out of the cup when I got em home onto that vine and has stayed there ever since. The big one wouldnt come out of the cup till I stuck my finger in. Then he didnt want off my finger. Lol. He has roamed all over the bottom of the Terra so far.

Have you sprayed them yet? I would think you should give them a good spraying, you don't want them to dry out. But spray over them or the plant, they don't seem to like being sprayed directly.

Very nice looking.Basements( at least around here) tend to stay pretty cool in the summer. Sounds like the place was quite interesting. As for the weather....... i always thought it 15 minutes!!

found this and thought it might be some help.

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/l ... ale-2.html

if this guy is correct they do look like temporalis

pufferpuggirl wrote:Have you sprayed them yet? I would think you should give them a good spraying, you don't want them to dry out. But spray over them or the plant, they don't seem to like being sprayed directly.

The guy was spraying them when I got there and they have been lightly misted twice since being put in their new home. Lol, dont worry PPG. I wont let them go without. I bought a nice misting bottle and the terrarium is nice and humid. You should directly spray them and try to get both eyes...like it or not. It helps to keep em clean. Feel free to stop in and check on em if you're in the area. You seem really concerned. But like I said, try not to worry.

Did a heavy misting before lights out. Little guy came down for a shower and a drink. Too cute. I'm uploading the video of him drinking now.

Wow they are super cute , your making me so jealous, maybe if you breed them I'll get some off you. Did you decide what species they are, are there an practical differences in care ?

Ok, after some more research I am quite certain they are Rhampholeon Temporalis. All pygmy care sheets and info I have read recommend the same type care regardless of species. They all come from the same area or are found in the same conditions. Thats one thing I wasnt too concerned with when I went to the show. Any pygmy type you find meets the same basic requirements. The big guy joined the little one for a drink. I found him under the back foot of his terra mate. Lol. It was comical and I snapped the pic just as he was pulling away.



Edit: Oh yeah, in this pic you can see the little guy has quite a tail. Easily as big or bigger than the larger cham. I still fear they are the same sex. Still looking into it. Both seem to curl under slightly at the end but are not prehensile. They show no aggression toward each other thus far even when close and sharing the same leaf for a shower and a drink. They seemed thirsty so I held the mister at the edge of the leaf, pulling the trigger very slowly so water dripped down and ran across it.