Panther Chameleon Care Guide

Species Common Name: Panther Chameleon

Scientific Name: Furcifer pardalis

Adult Size: 25-30cm for females, 40-45cm for males (including tail)

Captive Life Span: 2-4 years for females, 5-7 years for males (potentially more)

Data for this species in the wild

Natural Distribution: Northern half of Madagascar and extending down the east coast along with most of its offshore islands. It has also been introduced to Mauritius, Reunion Island and some parts of Florida. Generally found at lower elevations below 900m but some isolated populations do occur above this elevation (we found individuals in Joffreville at 1150m elevation).

Habitat Type: Variable across its range, they are an adaptable species and can be found in relatively arid scrub, coastal woodland, low elevation rainforest and are frequently found in farmland and proximity to human habitation.

Activity Pattern: Diurnal, only active by day.

Activity Zone: Strictly arboreal. Younger individuals are often in shrub height foliage, adult males can be found from virtually ground level to the top layers of tree canopy. Adult males will often sit in relatively exposed areas atop trees and “pancake” their body to display to others and claim a territory.

Summer Temperature Range: Varies across their range, in full sunlight extreme highs in the Northern populations during the dry season can reach up to 40+c. Across most of their natural range the summertime highs reach low to mid 30s. In our expeditions to Madagascar, we have personally recorded adults in full sunlight during the dry season at 42C in French mountain reserve at the northern extent of their range. At the end of the wet season, we recorded them at 34C near to Toamasina on the east coast towards the southern extent of their range. Summertime highs on Nosy Be, Nosy Komba and the Ankify Peninsula on the west coast were rarely above 32C. Within dense forest where they were most often encountered the daytime temperatures were much more stable around 30-32C by day and 24-27c by night.

Winter Temperature Range: Winter temperatures can drop to 18C in exposed coastal areas but within a forested environment where they are most frequently found the temperatures are more stable and are likely to stay higher than this. Some of the populations that live at elevation will also experience lower temperatures overnight but this is an exception rather than the norm.

Wild Diet: They are opportunistic predators, they will eat all manner of insects and smaller reptiles, there is an astounding variety of species of butterflies, cockroaches, grasshoppers and crickets in the areas they reside. They will not hesitate to consume smaller lizards and even smaller chameleons.

Keeping them as Pets – The Basics

Captive housing Minimum Size: 24 x 18 x 36in (60cm x 45cm x 90cm high) is the absolute minimum but we strongly recommend that you provide a larger enclosure than this for mature males. We would suggest a minimum of 36 x 18 x 36in (90cmx 45cm x 90cm) if using a glass or glass/mesh hybrid enclosure. If using an all-mesh enclosure like the Zoo Med Reptibreeze range, you need to use a 24 x 24 x 48in(60cm x 60cm x 120cm). These are the largest standard sized enclosures made for chameleons but if you are constructing your own or having one custom built, larger is always better.

Cage Material Construction: Good ventilation is essential. All mesh enclosures are commonly recommended, but you may struggle to maintain stable temperatures in an all-mesh enclosure here in the UK unless you have a dedicated reptile room. When using all mesh enclosures people often resort to blocking up some of the mesh sides with PVC or plastic board to increase thermal stability. Alternatively, you can opt for a part glass part mesh enclosure, some designs like the Exo-terra glass terrariums have mesh tops and a ventilation strip below the glass. This meets the minimum ventilation requirements, but people often choose to add a small fan to the top of this style of enclosure to provide additional air flow. Other designs of glass tank such as the Habistat glass terrariums have additional mesh panel inserts that you can swap into the enclosure to increase airflow. Wooden or melamine enclosures are not suitable for keeping chameleons as they lack the required levels of ventilation.

Social Structure: Solitary. In the wild, in favourable habitat, they occur in a relatively high population density, but they do not tolerate living with others when kept as pets. Babies and young can be reared in small groups for the first few months of life but they need to be split up and housed individually by the time they are 3-4 months old. Males and females must never be cohabited, even in large enclosures, as they can cause serious harm to one another if kept like this.

Daytime Hotspot / Basking Temperature: 32-35C maximum

Daytime Ambient Temperatures: 27-30c

Nighttime Ambient Temperatures: 20-25c

Preferred Heat source: ArcadiaSolar Basking flood, either 75w or 100w.

UVB Requirement Ferguson Zone: Zone 2-3 Occasional basking / Partial sun basking. We recorded them in the wild at UVI ranging from 1 all the way up to males displaying in full midday sun at a dangerously high UVI of 14! Recommended UVI levels between 2.5 and 4.5 across 50-75% of their enclosure is more appropriate when kept as pets.

Preferred UVB Source: ArcadiaPro T5 with a 6% UVB tube if mounted inside the enclosure or if mounted on top of mesh screen you may need to use a 12% UVB tube to account for some of the UVB being blocked by the mesh.

Humidity Requirement: High, regular misting is required. Make sure to allow the tank to dry out partially between misting’s though as a permanently wet environment can lead to increased fungal and bacterial growth.

Preferred Humidity Source: Some people recommend the use of a fogger at night with chameleons and while this is essential for many montane species or those from cooler microclimates, we find the benefits are minimal for low elevation species like Panthers and we would always recommend regular misting as being the best way to maintain humidity. Automatic misters like the Habistat rainmaker or the Mistking starter system can be used to make regular misting throughout the day easier.

Water Requirements: They will rarely, if ever, drink from standing water, they need to drink water droplets off leaves and cage furnishing to stay hydrated. Most individuals will make use of water fountains, but it is essential that you keep these clean. Most individuals will learn to take water directly from the keeper when offered water from a pipette or syringe.

Substrate: We recommend using a substrate that will hold humidity such as Orchid bark, or coir. If you have a bioactive set up, Arcadia Earth Mix will work best for your plant growth.

Recommended Décor: To make good use of the enclosure space means you need to provide lots of thin branches and liana’s for them to climb around on, especially horizontally. Bendable jungle vines can also be used to create more of a network of walkways within their environment. Some people choose to add either plastic or wooden trellis to the sides of the enclosure to increase the climbing space within their environment. The use of live plants is pretty much essential to maintain humidity and provide cover. Plants that work well include Ficus Benjamina, Dracaena surculosa and Epipremnum but there are many others that are also suitable, if you’re not sure what plants you need, we do a chameleon plant bundle to help.

Captive Diet: Insectivorous, we feed a mixture of locusts, crickets and dubia cockroaches, we also offer silkworms and morio worms occasionally. When feeding crickets and Dubia Cockroaches you will need to offer these in an elevated feeder, we use the ProRep Arboreal Chameleon feeder for this, and it works very well. “Gutloading” your live food on a high-quality formula like Arcadia Insect Fuel or Repashy Super Load is essential.

Feeding Frequency: Panther chameleons grow incredibly fast, their food requirements in the first 9-12 months of life are astonishing. They should be offered food every day for the first 9 months with around 15 insects per day. After this they should be fed 4-5 times a week with 8-10 insects per day. From 12 months onwards they will have reached maturity so they only need to be fed 4-5 insects 3-4 times per week. It is normal and natural that in adults you will find a seasonal shift in their appetite between winter and summer. In winter they may only eat once or twice per week or go for extended time frames without eating. In summer you may find that their appetite goes into overdrive.

Supplementation: There is a wealth of different guides regarding the supplementation of chameleons, it would be very easy to get into the rather confusing pros and cons of lots of these different methods. Live food should always be dusted with a good quality calcium supplement on every feed. We’ll keep it simple and say that with the correct lighting you shouldn’t need to regularly provide dietary preformed vitamin D3 in their supplementation regime. We prefer to use the Arcadia EarthPro A supplement as our daily supplement as this has added mineral clays, carotenoids, B vitamins and bee pollen in it. But once a week we supplement with ArcadiaEarth Pro Mg for the added magnesium and once per fortnight (for growing babies) or once per month (for adults) we supplement with Arcadia Revitalise D3 to provide a low level of added vitamin A & D3.

Cleaning: Spot clean enclosures daily, full clean for non-bioactive enclosures every 6 weeks, bioactive enclosures should have a partial clean and refresh every few months. When you perform a substrate change you should also disinfect the entire enclosure and all furnishings using a reptile safe disinfectant, our preferred ones to use are either the Vet Ark Ark-Klens or F10 reptile disinfectant. If you are using a water fountain you should be cleaning this at least twice per week to ensure there is no build-up of pathogens.

Handling Suitability: Panther chameleons will normally tolerate handling. For a chameleon they are definitely the best for handling, (most other chameleons are too fragile or stress too easily for them to be handled and are definitely a hands off pet). Some individuals will be very keen to come out of their enclosure and will readily climb onto the keeper to be removed from their enclosure. For particularly outgoing individuals like this you can set up other areas in the house for them to climb around and explore either large houseplants or rope netting suspended off the floor for example. Occasionally some individuals may be more shy and less keen to come out, for those you should not force them to come out as that can be stressful to them.

Recommended Starter Kit: Click here for a link to our recommended starter kits

Advancing your care:

Simple ways to advance your care can include opting for a larger environment for your Panther Chameleon both in terms of length and height, however, it would need to be custom built. Ensuring regular variety to their diet is also a simple step that is easily achievable for most keepers. Although most Panther Chameleons show a preference for Locusts try to maintain diversity in their diet as it’s a lot easier to gut load other live food species effectively. It worth noting that adult females can be prone to obesity if overfed, this can lead to further health complications especially when laying eggs. Obesity is less common in males but potentially still possible if fed large volumes of high fat foods. Other ways to advance your care can be by using some of the most cutting-edge heating and lighting equipment. The Microclimate Evo 2, Evo 3 and Evo Connected range of thermostats all have the capability to program varying temperatures throughout the day to mimic early morning temperatures, heat of the day and late evening temperatures with fully customisable options. This can be especially good for species like Panther Chameleons which exhibit “biphasic” basking patterns in the wild which means they would often bask in both the morning and the late afternoon while avoiding the hottest part of the day, you can provide these varying temperatures by using these cutting-edge thermostats. Some Keepers advocate only having the basking site switched on at certain times of day rather than being on continuously, again this can be programmed into these advanced thermostats quite easily. While on the topic of making temperatures more natural and varied throughout the day, consider providing seasonal variation, many chameleons will benefit from a period of slightly lower temperatures over winter, combine this with a shorter day length and lower provisions of food rations. Providing seasonal variation and “down time” over the winter is one of the best ways to promote longevity in chameleons rather than keeping them in an eternal peak summer season. By using the Arcadia LumenIZE range of UVB fixtures you can also program your lighting to simulate dawn and dusk to provide a much more natural range of UVB exposure throughout the day. The LumenIZE range can also be adjusted at different times of year to account for seasonal variance. Another often overlooked factor is the general brightness inside the enclosure and although we may think of the UVB bulbs as being quite bright, they are nothing when compared to natural sunlight. It is now a well-recognised method to improve the environment for lots of species of reptile to add LED fittings as well as the UVB just to increase the general luminosity (brightness) within the environment. Again, these are available in the Arcadia LumenIZE range so that they can have variable levels of brightness to simulate dawn and dusk. The provision of LED lighting will also work wonders for the plants within your enclosure ensuring lush growth. Consider also providing your chameleon with natural sunlight by providing them with an outdoor enclosure for use over the summer, this should be a fully mesh enclosure just be sure to provide plenty of dense foliage to allow them to shelter from the sun as well.

Additional Information:

Follicular stasis (Egg Binding) is very common in female Panther Chameleons as they are genetically programmed to live fast and produce large numbers of eggs at a comparatively young age. When opting for a pet you should choose a male to avoid these reproductive risks. It is only the males that have the bright colours, females although pretty in their own right are only ever shades of pink, orange and some individuals can be a blueish grey, it is the males that have the fantastic colours.

Although when young they are all generally grey or blueish grey, male panther chameleons’ adult colours are determined by the region that their ancestors were collected from, this is referred to as their “locality”. Localities are often named after the nearest town or settlement to where the individuals originated e.g Ambilobe, Ambanja or Sambava. Some localities are named after geographic features, e.g Cap Est (East Cape) or Ankify which is named after the Ankify peninsula. Some other localities are named after the offshore island that they originate from. Any locality starting with the word “Nosy” is from an offshore island (sometimes spelled Nosey or Nosé) as Nosy is simply the Malagasy word for Island E.g Nosy Be (Big Island), Nosy Faly (Happy Island), Nosy Mitseo (Honey Island). Most localities have an iconic colour scheme for their region but there is often some variability both in the wild and captivity. Some localities can be very variable in terms of colouration, Ambilobe, one of the most popular localities are also the most variable in terms of colours, they are always very colourful individuals but can have many different combinations of red, blue, green, orange, and yellow markings. Other localities normally “breed very true” meaning there is little variability in their markings, examples being Nosy Mitseo or Cap Est which show very little variability in their colours or markings. Some localities like Nosy Be have also been selectively line bred to enhance a particular colour “true blue Nosy Be” is more a term for line bred individuals with very strong turquoise blue colours and little barring or red speckling rather than an accurate representation of what they all look like in the wild. In the wild, very few Nosy Be individuals were turquoise, most Nosy Be we found were not as vibrant as this line bred “True Blue” being more of a blue/green showing some banded patterning and with more red speckling on them.

When discussing localities there is some scientific support that the different colours of panther chameleons may represent different species altogether. What we deem to be a panther chameleon may be a term that describes 4 different but very similar species loosely separated by geographic boundaries. Should you be scientifically minded then the following is a reference to the scientific paper in question.

Grbic, Djordje, et al. "Phylogeography and support vector machine classification of colour variation in panther chameleons." Molecular ecology 24.13 (2015): 3455-3466.