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SEPTEMBER 2011
One of our Chameleons nearly lost it's life in our pool. Luckily our regular guests, Susan and Michael Shelton, were staying with us. Susan spotted something in the pool, and when going to have a look realised it was a chameleon. A quick rescue and one hour of comforting and the (un)lucky chameleon was let out in the nature again. On the photo Sian, Susan and Michaels daughter - also visiting with her husband - are taking good care of our friend.
The photos below is taken by Jan-Ketil on that occasion.
Kjersti first spotted the Chameleon on it's way across our backyard. We were having lunch and our friend was on it's way to try and find some goodies. As the pavement is light colored stones the Chameleon had turned itself quite pale and was walking very slowly across. When we understood what we were seeing - the first time for both of us - Jan-Ketil ran in for the camera and Kjersti followed it's moves. It was heading for our planted area by our terrace - trees and plants spread out. The old pomme granate tree was the goal in the first instance. It hang around there for some 20 min time. We were too late for having photos at the ground when looking pale, but some nice shots in the tree.
After this we saw it once more today, 15th August, reminding us that we needed to have the story and photos on our site. Obviously it has a good time here and hopefully it has a mate around here so we will have a family of them for the winter. The last two photos taken 15th August.
The colour range includes shades of green, grey, yellow, orange and brown. They usually have two broken longitudinal white/light stripes along the sides, one starting just above the shoulder and one starting just below the shoulder. They can have a somewhat complicated pattern at times consisting of a series of v-shapes along the spine interspersed with spots and splotches. There is a row of conical scales that form a small crest on the back and a small gular crest. The parietal crest is moderately raised with the highest elevation being towards the back. Mating occurs from mid July to mid September in the Northern Hemisphere. They usually lay only one clutch per year. The clutch is laid sometime from the end of September to the first of November