Panther Chameleon eggs FAQ

Yes - but not from iPardalis. Selling Panther Chameleon eggs is a common scam. You should buy a healthy juvenile so you can assess the lineage and quality of your Panther Chameleon prior to your purchase. There is a reason the egg flipper wants you to buy it before it hatches (one out of four times it will not hatch). Their “guarantees” are just a hook to force you to buy something on store credit, and many egg sellers increase the price of their juveniles to make their eggs more desirable. When you eventually purchase something “on store credit,” that over-priced juvenile is part of the plan.

Those “guarantees” also can’t be honored if the business closes - the average lifespan of a chameleon breeder is very short - not long enough for the chickens to come home to roost here.

No - please support ethical breeders who raise their Panther Chameleons individually. Many egg sellers are notorious for poor husbandry, dishonest business practices and cutting corners whenever possible. They are selling eggs because they do not invest in proper equipment to raise the babies and they often don’t know how. That means they can’t help you be successful with your baby chameleon when it hatches. Buying Panther Chameleon eggs promotes over-production and the commodification of Panther Chameleons while undercutting people who have small margins raising them ethically, like iPardalis. Don’t take part in that.

No - they flip eggs that they purchase for $10-$15 each under false lineage. You won’t understand the scam until 18 months or more after your purchase, if you are lucky enough to get a male, and you won’t know for another 3 years or more if you get a female.

No - Panther Chameleons have genetically determined sex at a roughly 50/50 ratio. Anyone who says they can sex the egg before it hatches probably already has your watch in their pocket.

No - they are extremely vulnerable and small. Any interaction with a hatchling Panther Chameleon is likely to cause severe stress and potentially result in a hunger strike. Please do not attempt to bond with a hatchling Panther Chameleon. You are very likely to cause harm. You are not “bonding” with it - you are abusing it.

Unless you are an experienced breeder, no. You are more likely to make a mistake and kill or maim your pet. The average buyer is not very well equipped to care for a hatchling Panther Chameleon. Reputable breeders have spent years of trial and error so they can skip the errors and improve. You don’t get that luxury as a novice Panther Chameleon keeper - your errors can result in the permanent harm or death of your fragile pet. It is much better to work with an experienced breeder and work up to the care of a hatchling after successfully raising a hardy juvenile.

Panther Chameleon eggs range from $75-$250. However, like many get rich quick schemes and affordable options, this is a lie too. Most people compare the price of an egg and the price of the nicest full-grown panther chameleon they have ever seen. They imagine they’re getting that amazing animal in the egg, so they buy into the idea that it is a good deal pretty quickly. Hence why this is such an effective scam. However, here are the extra costs that are incurred from 0-3 months of age. I’m not even going to attempt the cost comparison with the fully proven adult male they envision buying, which is a 1 out of 100 chance.

• $75 food
• $50 extra decor for baby cage
• $50 small cage
• $50 bad feeder shipments, wasted feeders, or other challenges with live food
• $50 small lights
• time is money, no? Whatever price you put on 3 months of your own labor

No - every reputable breeder has offered some form of pre-payment plan for decades. Suggesting this is an advantage for buying a Panther Chameleon egg is dishonest. We run a Reservation Program for every clutch we have incubating. And when you get a juvenile from our program, we review your enclosure with you to ensure that it is dialed in prior to shipment. You don’t have a 12 month window when you have to be ready every day for a fragile hatchling to emerge… Ready or not!

Feeder insects for baby Panther Chameleons are not cheap because the feeders often don’t last very long (both fruit flies and bean beetles go through fast boom/bust cycles), and it is challenging to keep the proper sizes on hand as your baby Panther Chameleon grows. It is easy to waste multiple cultures, maybe even dozens of cultures, while you wait for your Panther Chameleon egg to hatch. When they do hatch, they can’t eat an entire fruit fly culture by themselves and you are likely going to waste tens of thousands of flies on a single Panther Chameleon hatchling.

You also won’t be buying those cultures in bulk. When you move up to crickets, the smallest size cricket will out grow your baby Panther Chameleon in a matter of days, so if you buy 500 1/16" crickets, you may be able to feed him/her 20-30 before they get too big for him/her to eat. That’s more than 95% waste and you will be paying retail price for those. It is very easy to spend upwards of $200-$250 on feeders alone between 0-3 months of age on a single Panther Chameleon hatchling because you will waste feeders. That is compared to a breeder who can do it at around $150 across an entire clutch. You could just pay the breeder $50-$100 more for your juvenile and save yourself some money while giving them a little profit without the risk and time spent.

A fertile Panther Chameleon egg should hold a nice round shape with a white shell. They will grow significantly in size over the incubation period, sometimes more than doubling in weight. A fertilized Panther Chameleon egg will eventually have hairlike cracks which begin to sweat about 1 week before they hatch. An unfertilized Panther Chameleon egg can grow in size over the incubation period, but instead of sweating and hatching, they just shrivel up and mold over. This is another reason why selling Panther Chameleon eggs is such an effective scam - infertile eggs will often go to term - and it is very common for people to wait many months to find out. The worst case scenario is you have to wait up to 18 months for the infertile egg to start molding to be covered under the “guarantee,” just so you can wait another 18 months for it to mold a second time (roughly one out of eight egg buyers could have this experience given their hatch rates).

We place them in a small Tupperware container using Josh’s Frogs Incubation Media, and store it in a cabinet which stays around 72-74 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year. Our Tupperware have 1/16" holes punched in a ring around the top for ventilation, and we check the weight of the containers every 2 months. If necessary, we add water to keep them near 100% humidity at all times. Many egg buyers forget to add water or add too much - killing the egg and voiding their “guarantee.”

Yes - chameleons are oviparous. Many species of chameleons dig holes and bury their eggs in sandy soil like many species of turtles. This is one characteristic which makes them very interesting pets. The long incubation period of their eggs lends itself to egg scams in the captive market for chameleons.

A chameleon can lay anywhere from 10 to 60 eggs. Larger species such as Veiled Chameleons are notorious for laying dangerously large clutches when they are over fed and provided with too much heat. Smaller chameleon species such as Furcifer lateralis (Carpet Chameleons) and Furcifer minor (Lesser Chameleons) tend to have clutches in the 7 to 15 egg range. Panther Chameleons like the ones we own usually lay between 15 and 30 eggs - ideally about 20 eggs.

Yes - most species of chameleons will lay unfertilized eggs in captivity; however, some are more likely to do so than others. The issue is exacerbated when a female chameleon is over fed or provided with high basking temperatures. This is why you need to provide every sexually mature female chameleon with adequate laying options at all times. It is also why you should not assume a Panther Chameleon egg is fertilized.