Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Bor­der be­tween Yemen and Saudi Ara­bia: The veiled chameleon oc­cu­pies high, dry plateaus and is found near the bor­der of Yemen and Saudi Ara­bia along the foot of the es­carp­ment and local wadis (in­land river val­ley), to an el­e­va­tion of al­most 3,000 feet.

• Biogeographic Regions
• palearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Veiled chameleons are ar­bo­real lizards, mean­ing they pre­fer to live high up in trees or lower near the ground in bushes and shrubs. They can live in dry areas and are found on plateaus of moun­tain­ous re­gions, forests and val­leys of south­ern Saudi Ara­bia and Yemen. They are one of the few species of chameleons which can tol­er­ate wide tem­per­ate ranges, though they pre­fer to live in a tem­per­a­ture range of 75 to 95 de­grees F.

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune
• mountains

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The veiled chameleon is char­ac­ter­ized as an ag­gres­sive, brightly col­ored chameleon. They have a casque found on top of their heads, which is a tiny swelling when a hatch­ling, but grows to two inches in height. They typ­i­cally have bold bands cir­cling their body pri­mar­ily of bright gold, green and blue mixed with yel­low, or­ange or black. They also have very long cones on their gular crest. There is sex­ual di­mor­phism.

Males have a larger body and casque (head crest or hel­met) when ma­ture. They are born with tarsal spurs which makes sex­ing them very easy. Male body length can reach be­tween 17 to 24 inches from head to the tip of the tail. Pas­tel green as hatch­lings, ma­ture males will de­velop a pat­tern of sev­eral col­ors such as turquoise, yel­low, or­ange, green and black. They are also usu­ally thin in ap­pear­ance. Fe­males have a smaller head and casque, and reach their full growth be­tween 10 to 14 inches, within their first year. The fe­male's casque is smaller than the males, but they are heavy bod­ied. Ma­ture fe­males are shades of green mot­tled with shades of tan, or­ange, white, and some­times yel­low (Crab­tree, 1999).

Re­pro­duc­tion

The lifes­pan of a veiled chameleon is usu­ally five years for fe­males and up to eight years for males (Crab­tree, 1999). They reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity within 4 to 5 months (8-12 inches). Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son, fe­males turn from their usual light green to a black­ish-green with blue and yel­low spots on their bod­ies within 18 hours of a suc­cess­ful mat­ing. Egg lay­ing will occur be­tween 20 - 30 days after mat­ing. Their typ­i­cal clutch size is 35 - 85 eggs, and breed­ing may occur up to three times a year.

Be­hav­ior

Veiled chameleons are shy in na­ture. When star­tled or feel­ing threat­ened they may curl into a tight fetal po­si­tion, darken in color, and "play pos­sum". Like opos­sums, it takes a con­sid­er­able time until they feel se­cure enough to un­fold and begin mov­ing about again. How­ever, veiled chameleons are very ag­gres­sive to­wards each other. They pre­fer to live a soli­tary life. Males are very ter­ri­to­r­ial and should al­ways be sep­a­rated. How­ever, fe­males can be in close prox­im­ity of each other at any time ex­cept dur­ing breed­ing sea­son. Males and fe­males only tol­er­ate each other when ready to breed.

Food Habits

The veiled chameleon is an in­sec­ti­vore. They have the abil­ity to cap­ture prey by pro­ject­ing their sticky tongue. Their tongues are also used for smell and taste. They have also been ob­served as hav­ing a pref­er­ence for cer­tain prey types. Green in­sects seem to be a fa­vorite. How­ever, they are one of the few chameleons that also enjoy the taste of plants. They adapted to eat­ing leaves of plants as a source of water dur­ing the dry sea­sons (Crab­tree, 1999).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Live and dead chameleons are sold for rit­u­als and sou­venirs.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Wild chameleon pop­u­la­tions are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing grow­ing pres­sures on a va­ri­ety of fronts, caus­ing some en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists to sound alarms con­cern­ing the long-term sur­vival of these an­i­mals. It is yet to be seen whether these chameleons will be able to with­stand large-scale com­mer­cial ex­ploita­tion and ex­ten­sive habi­tat loss.

Grow­ing human pop­u­la­tions in their na­tive habi­tat causes in­creas­ing com­pe­ti­tion for eco­nomic re­sources. Land is con­sumed to house grow­ing human pop­u­la­tions. Land pre­vi­ously con­sid­ered sa­cred is cleared, burned, mined or logged to ex­ploit nat­ural

re­source for its cur­rent eco­nomic value. Chameleon pop­u­la­tions are ul­tra-sen­si­tive to the prob­lems as­so­ci­ated with habi­tat loss.

Due to their slow-mov­ing na­ture, and their in­abil­ity to re­lo­cate quickly, chameleons have evolved in small, often iso­lated pock­ets. To these small, iso­lated pop­u­la­tions, habi­tat loss can prove to be dis­as­trous. Chameleons are ex­ploited by the lo­cals in their na­tive habi­tat, and by for­eign­ers. Lo­cally, they are sold live to be used for a va­ri­ety of pur­poses. Some na­tives be­lieve that throw­ing a live chameleon into a fire will bring them good luck. Chameleon parts are some­times sold to be used in magic rit­u­als. Grow­ing de­mand by tourists for chameleon body parts (which are sold a sou­venirs) adds yet an­other de­mand for chameleons in the local mar­kets (Fry, 1997).

• IUCN Red List

  No special status
  More information

Con­trib­u­tors

Ebony Jones (au­thor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity, James Hard­ing (ed­i­tor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity.

Ref­er­ences

Bartlett, R., P. Bartlett. 1995. Chameleons. Haup­pauge, New York: Bar­ron's Ed­u­ca­tional Se­ries, Inc..

Crab­tree, W. 1999. "Lizard Lane" (On-line). Ac­cessed 9/20/99 at Http://​members.​tripod.​com/​~lizard­lane/.

Fry, M. 1995-1997. "Chameleons" (On-line). Ac­cessed 12/10/99 at Http://​www.​skypoint.​com/​members/​mikefry/​chams.​html.