Battle Wounds
It was a Wednesday in October 2000 and I was ready to take my half day off when a client called the clinic saying that he was bringing his 6-month-old female Veiled chameleon for a checkup. He said she had a bite wound made by the male. When he came in, he brought the female who had a severely necrotic left hind foot and an equally necrotic tip of tail. When I asked the owner for some history, he told me that this happened a couple of days ago when the male approached the female and she rejected him. The male then proceeded to attack her, biting her leg and tail as she tried to get away. He had kept them housed together since buying them in a pet shop 5 months prior.
The female appeared very alert and was in good health despite the lesions. I advised the owner that surgery should be performed to amputate the useless foot and tip of tail and prevent further infection. He agreed, and within 20 minutes I was operating on the chameleon. Anesthesia was performed by masking the patient and keeping her on 5% isoflurane. A tourniquet was placed on the tail and the leg to control bleeding during surgery. The dead tissue at the tip of the tail was amputated and the wound was cauterized.
The leg was amputated at the level of the knee (stifle), lightly cauterized and the skin was closed with surgical glue. The patient came out of anesthesia almost immediately. Baytril (enrofloxacin) was used as antibiotic of choice for post-operative care. I took her home with me and placed her in a heavily-planted screened cage with a 75-watt heat lamp. She got settled and proceeded to eat 6 large crickets and drank a good amount of water. She went home to her owner the next day and he reports that this chameleon is doing great with no complications. He is now housing his chameleons in separate cages.
The lesson of this case is to avoid caging chameleons together. It is true that some species have low intraspecific aggression, but they should still be maintained separately. Veiled chameleons (Chamaeleo calyptratus) are typically aggressive and are likely to attack other chameleons if kept in small cages. Nobody likes losing their prized chameleons to injuries, so invest in enough cages to keep them individually.
Ivan Alfonso, DVM