The Jackson's Chameleon
Chameleo jacksonii


This is Saccardo, my male Jackson's chameleon. He's named after a famous mycologist (is that an oxymoron?), Pier Andrea Saccardo, who is best known for attempting to summarize all fungi that had ever been described in his multi-volume, all-Latin work, Sylloge Fungorum. I wanted my chameleon to have a proper mycological name.

I am a mycologist, not a herpetologist, so this page is primarily an assemblage of random trivia about my individual chameleon. For more information about Jackson's chameleons, or chameleons in general, please visit the links at the bottom of the page.

I obtained Saccardo the chameleon in January, 2003, when he was described as a seven-month old sub-adult. As I write, he recently celebrated his second birthday, and may be expected to live for two to five more years.

The picture was taken shortly after Saccardo broke the tip off his front horn, in September, 2003. He had his horn tip dabbed with antibiotic ointment for a week following his injury and has recovered nicely.

He is "free ranging", being permitted the run of the living room, and the back porch on warm days. While he spends a certain amount of time on the floor, crossing from point A to point B, Jackson's chameleons are arboreal, and he is happiest when he can be up high. He can be found on his Chameleon Condo, on a hanging lamp in the corner of the room, clinging to a curtain, hiding in a grapevine wreath, on or in any plant he can reach... You can just make him out, clinging to the rope near the top of his Condo, in the picture to the right.

Saccardo sheds approximately once avery three or four months. You can see a little loose skin around the base of his tail in the above photo if you look closely. He eats avidly, but will not grow much more, having reached his adult length of about five inches snout-to-vent-length, or 10-12 inches counting the tail. His primary food is crickets - he'll eat three to five or more extra-large crickets in a day - but he gets waxworms, superworms or mealworms as a treat at least once a week (one superworm, or several wax- or mealworms). He is watered by an overhead drip system from his Chameleon Condo (being a tree-dwelling animal in nature, he doesn't understand the concept of standing water - water is something that drips on you from above), and is spritzed periodically as well, especially when he is shedding.

Saccardo's usual color is the light green you see in the pictures, with the head and the back a bit darker. If he gets upset or excited about something, he can very rapidly become much darker and assume a blotchy pattern. He does not change color to match his surroundings, although his usual, calm green combined with his slowness and leaf-like appearance when he's resting can make him difficult to spot in a leafy plant. Color changes in many chameleons are more for the purpose of intraspecies communication: "I'm a big, bold male and this is my territory!"; "I'm a female and am receptive/not receptive to your advances"; "I'm a female and gravid," etc., than for camouflage purposes; the camouflage comes about from the animals' slow and secretive habits. Saccardo moves slowly in general, and if he's being watched he can get quite slow, rocking back and forth several times with each step. The "thinking" behind this behavior seems to be something along the lines of "Animals don't move like this; therefore, I am not an animal, just a leaf swaying in the wind. Pay me no mind."

Links
Jackson's Chameleon Information - need I say more?
CHAMELEONS! on-line e-zine
Jackson's chameleons in Hawaii - Artists Matthew and Mary Lovein share their resident, wild Jackson's chameleons. Lots of good pictures.
Kammerflage Kreations - breeders of several species, particularly panther chameleons.

Updated August 20, 2004