With relief, we bid a fond farewell to Mr. C. We're so glad we managed to keep him alive although I killed his tree. His owner returned from his trip home to Shanghai and reunited with Mr. C a couple of days ago. Mr. C was an odd critter-didn't interact, was uniformly stoic except occasionally opening his mouth wide and emitting a sustained hiss. This usually occurred when I evidently displeased him while spritzing water on his tree, which I thought was a tad ungrateful: chameleons commonly consume their water as it drips from leaves. He also behaved this way when C (no relation) opened his enclosure to shake out his daily meal of crickets. Well, just can't please you by providing the essentials of life.
He didn't do much except to sit on a couple of bare branches that I positioned over the tree in his enclosure. He spent most of his day basking in the UV lamp occasionally moving from one branch to the other, onto the enclosure screen, down into the tree to hunt for a cricket. That's it. Oh, he curled and uncurled his tail a lot.
You can imagine my concern one morning over coffee and the Times when out of the corner of my eye, I caught motion in his enclosure and heard a dull thud. Oh no! Dude, did you have the big one? (The pet shop reptile guru warned chameleons are prone to heart attacks especially in response to sudden movement). Of course, Mr. Stoic had nothing to say which is so different from our crew who are quite vocal about so many things. Eventually, I saw him slogging up his tree. I was puzzled-I hadn't made a sudden move. He was eating well. His color was good and bright (when ill or stressed, their color can dull). So, the next time I was buying crickets, I asked the reptile guru. "Oh, that's dropping behavior" he replied. "A bit of evolutionary development: if a chameleon has his sights on a meal or is faced with a predator, they will flee by dropping off a rock or a cliff up to 20 feet." Whoa! "And, they will puff themselves up like an inner tube to cushion the fall." Presumably, they probably bounce a couple of times. I wonder if there is a vid on YouTube?
His eating behavior is well-documented-the freakishly long tongue whips out, grabs dinner and retracts. C at first was not too keen on witnessing the crickets meeting their destiny. Furthermore, the sound of Mr. C eating them resembled the crunching of potato chips. Of course my response to this was to immediately bring up the ancient Lay's ad: Can't Just Eat One. Mr. C heartily agreed. Over time however, much like gawking at the aftermath of an accident, C's curiosity won out in fascination of watching the tongue at work. During her final feeding before we took him home, she thought something was wrong. He lunged at a cricket but suddenly stopped like a dog who had come to the end of his leash. Oh no, no Mr. C, don't croak on us now!!! Turns out she had closed the door on his tail after depositing supper. Sorry dude! She quickly opened the door and Mr. C, stoic as ever, moseyed up the branch and curled his tail. No harm, no foul.
So, Mr. C-take care, good luck, it was good to know you.
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