Re: How do you sex a chameleon? How do you tell how long they live??

Hi Jay,

With their wacky eyes, their prehensile tails, and their snappy sticky tongues, these lizards are definitely one of my favourite animals.

There is no specific way to easily sex them. In some species, the males will have a hemipenal bulge at the base of the tail. Some species have horns and with others you have to observe their behaviour or wait to see if they produce eggs.

The only way to tell their age is to guess from their size or, if they are still young, to look for the development of certain body parts as they grow such as the horn.

You can find out a lot about chameleons at the following website: Discussion forum for chameleons

Richard Kingsley ADMIN NOTE: Bryan Fry adds:

Certain species, such as C. calyptratus, have spines on the back leg near the back-facing toe only in males.

Cheers,
Bryan Grieg Fry
University of Queensland