The things people ask us most. If your question is not here, just ask.
Start with a free, no-obligation conversation. We will discuss your setup, answer your questions, and introduce you to available animals. Once we have agreed on a good match, we will send a secure Square invoice.
Talking first is also how we match you to the right individual animal rather than whichever photograph caught your eye. Every one of ours is raised on its own, so we know their temperaments and can tell you which would suit you.
We start with a phone call, mostly so we both know we are dealing with a real person. After that it is whatever suits you: a video call, or photos and messages back and forth. Either way we introduce you to the animals we have available, answer every question you have, and look over your enclosure plans. Expect about twenty minutes.
There is no charge and no obligation. Plenty of calls end with us saying "get your setup running for a month, then come back to us", and that is a perfectly good outcome.
Yes, first-time keepers are welcome. What matters is your willingness to prepare and learn. We will review your enclosure and care plans together and help you choose an individual suited to your experience.
Start with our pre-arrival checklist and care guides. Reading them before your call will put you well ahead.
Males are typically $300 to $600, females $200 to $400. Where an animal falls in that range depends on its lineage and on the individual chameleon: color, size, how it has developed and how it is shaping up.
We will give you a firm price for the specific animal on your call, before any invoice. Shipping, if you need it, is quoted separately.
Once we have agreed on an animal we send a Square invoice. Settling it reserves that chameleon: it comes off the available list and is held for you. Paying does not schedule shipping on its own, and we arrange the date with you separately.
You can reserve an animal that is not yet old enough to travel. It stays with us at our expense until it is ready, which is often the case with a younger clutch.
If we cannot fulfill your order, we refund everything paid on it. If a weather hold runs thirty days past the agreed shipping date, you can either keep waiting or cancel for a full refund. Both are set out on the shipping page.
We send a Square invoice by email after your consultation, which you can pay by card. We never handle or store your card details.
We will never ask for payment by gift card, wire transfer, cryptocurrency or a friends-and-family app transfer. If somebody claiming to be us does, it is not us.
Yes. That is exactly what the consultation is for. We can walk the racks on camera, or send you photos and video of any animal you are interested in. We will give you our honest opinion about which would suit you best, but the choice is yours.
Ask us. More importantly though: panther chameleons must be housed individually. They are solitary and territorial, and cohabiting them causes chronic stress, injury and death. Two chameleons means two complete setups, so please be sure before you commit.
Yes, to the contiguous 48 states, by overnight courier arranged through MorphMarket Shipping and held for pickup. That is FedEx or UPS depending on your destination. We do not currently ship to Alaska or Hawaii, and we do not ship internationally.
Yes. All live animals ship hold for pickup, and you collect within two hours of the package becoming available, during counter hours and before the facility closes that day. If it becomes available before the counter opens, the two hours start at opening.
It is a specific counter, not any shipping shop. We agree an approved carrier location with you and verify it before the label is created, so you will know exactly where you are going. We cannot ship to PO boxes, FedEx Office or UPS Store locations, or other third party pickup points.
Please make sure you can be there before we agree a shipping date, because not collecting voids the live arrival guarantee. The full terms are on the shipping page.
Our minimum age for shipping or pickup is six months, and each animal must also be individually ready to travel. You can reserve a younger animal, which remains in our care at our expense until it is ready.
We postpone shipping when weather or carrier conditions make travel unsafe. Your chameleon stays with us at no additional boarding charge, and we will agree on a new date together. The shipping page sets out how we judge it.
Yes. We guarantee live arrival when the shipping, collection and handling arrangements we agreed together are followed. A carrier delay on its own does not void it.
For a verified deceased arrival covered by the guarantee, we refund the animal's purchase price and the original shipping charge, or send a replacement agreed between us with shipping paid by us. Report any problem straight away and no later than one hour after pickup, with photographs of the animal and the packaging.
What it does not cover is a missed collection deadline, a delivery change made without us, or handling after pickup. The full terms, including how to report, are on the shipping page.
24 × 24 × 48 inches minimum, for either sex. Females used to be given a smaller minimum; we have moved to the same size for both, and she also needs a lay bin kept in place and maintained from maturity onward. Those are floors, not targets. Full sizing by age is in the enclosure guide.
We recommend and build hybrid enclosures: screen top and lower front, solid PVC sides and back, clear front door. That combination holds humidity while keeping continuous airflow through the chimney effect.
The honest answer is that it depends on your room. A full screen cage is fine where the ambient air is already warm and humid enough on its own. In most heated homes, ours included, it is not, and a screen cage means misting constantly to chase a number you can never hold. Think of the enclosure as a tool for closing the gap between your room and what the animal needs, and in most rooms that tool is a hybrid. The enclosure guide works through it properly.
Three separate fixtures: a linear T5 HO UVB tube (never a coil bulb), a basking bulb hitting 80–85 °F at the branch, and a plant grow light. See the lighting guide.
As a starting routine, two sessions of two to three minutes: early morning before lights on, and again about thirty minutes after lights off. The wait in the evening lets temperatures drop first. A midday session is possible but we do not recommend it.
Then adjust it to your enclosure rather than leaving the timer to do the thinking. Two things tell you whether it is working: droplets sitting and running on the leaves after a session, which is what your chameleon actually drinks from, and the enclosure drying down properly during the day. A heavily planted enclosure holds water longer than a sparse one, so watch the leaves rather than the clock. Misting is only one part of the cycle, and the hydration guide covers the rest.
Honestly? Chameleons do not enjoy handling. At best they tolerate it. Let them walk onto your hand rather than grabbing them, keep it brief, and stop if they darken or gape. No handling at all for the first week home. More in the health and handling guide.
Males live five to eight years in captivity, against roughly one to two years in the wild. That gap is the whole argument for good husbandry.
Females are shorter lived: expect two to three years once she has started laying. Egg production takes a real toll, and it happens even without a male present. Restrained feeding for adult females is the single biggest thing you can do about it, and it is covered in the feeding guide.
Males are larger, far more colorful, and live longer. Females are smaller and more subtly colored, and they come with the responsibility of egg laying: a permanent lay bin, restrained feeding, and the risk of egg binding.
Temperament often runs the other way, though. In our experience males tend to be the shy ones and take longer to warm up to being handled. Females make the better pets: they can be feisty, but they are usually the sweet, friendly ones. That surprises people who came for the color.
Every one of them has its own personality, so treat that as a tendency rather than a promise. We can tell you what a specific animal is actually like, because we raise them individually and handle them daily.
For a first chameleon we still usually suggest a male, and that is about husbandry rather than character: no lay bin, no restrained feeding, and none of the risk that comes with egg production. If you would rather have the temperament and take on the extra care, a female is a good choice and we will say so. We will talk it through on your call.
Yes, and we would rather you asked than guessed. Every chameleon goes home with our contact details for questions at any hour, a care sheet specific to that animal and how it has been kept, and its hatch record: lay date, hatch date and lineage.
We stay your point of contact for anything to do with the animal we sold you. Sending us a photograph and asking whether something looks normal is exactly the sort of message we want. We answer husbandry questions from people who have never bought anything from us, so you will certainly get an answer.
We breed Ambilobe. They are our foundation animals and, for now, the only locale we work with.
Sambava and Ambanja are the two we would love to get going eventually, once our Ambilobe lines have proved out over more generations. We would rather do one locale properly than three of them badly. Whichever locale it is, it is still a panther chameleon, Furcifer pardalis.
Every hatchling goes straight from the incubator into its own planted, bioactive enclosure and stays there. No communal bins at any stage. Nothing ever competes for food, water or basking space, and we track each animal's weight and feeding individually.
It is slower and far more expensive than raising a clutch in tubs. It is also the main reason our animals are as robust as they are.
Not currently. We keep other reptiles personally (that is how we got here), but panther chameleons are the sole focus of the business.
Further out, we would love to work with Parson's chameleons, Calumma parsonii. They are a different species entirely, they are slow to mature and they are a serious undertaking, so for now it is an ambition rather than a plan. If we ever do it, it will be because we are confident we can do it properly.
Largely from Bill Strand at Chameleon Academy, plus several years of doing it ourselves and adjusting. We are not affiliated with him, but we send every new keeper we meet in his direction.
Yes. You do not need to buy an animal to buy a feeder system. Have a look at the range and message us with the colors you want.
Ask us directly. We reply to everything, usually within a day or two.
