Are you a new chameleon pet owner looking to learn a little more about your reptile friend?
Do you want to make sure your reptile pet is at a healthy weight?
Knowing where your Chameleon should be at in terms of weight and length is important for knowing if your chameleon has an illness or not. When you see this, it’s possible to get your pet into the vet right away and fix its problems.
You may find yourself wondering:
How much does a chameleon weigh?
A Chameleon weight as an adult depends largely on a species. There are over 200 different chameleon species from a wide variety of sizes. In general, pet chameleons will end up around 100-120 grams.
Check out the rest of the article for more specific information on the weight of different species and gender as well as things to do to help your pet maintain a healthy weight.
Chameleon Weight By Species
In this section, we’ll look at chameleon weight by species and gender.
Since there are so many species, we’ll spend time looking at the most common species of chameleons for pets.
While these numbers aren’t hard and fast rules, use them as a guideline to tell if your pet is suffering from malnutrition or is obese.
In both these cases, you may need to take a trip to the vet or adjust their feedings.
| Species | Average Male Weight In Grams (ounces) | Average Female Weight In Grams (ounces) |
| Veiled Chameleon | 85-170 grams (3-6 ounces) | 85-113 grams (3-4 ounces) |
| Jackson’s Chameleon | 110-150 grams (3.8-5.3 ounces) | 90-130 grams (3.2-4.6 ounces) |
| Panther Chameleon | 140-180 grams (4.9-6.3 ounces) | 60-100 grams (2.1-3.5 ounces) |
| Bearded Pygmy Chameleon | 12-20 grams (0.4-0.7 ounces) | 12-20 grams (0.4-0.7 ounces) |
| Spectral Pygmy Chameleon | 20-28 grams (0.7-1 ounces) | 12-28 grams (0.4-1 ounces) |
| Usambara Pitted Pygmy Chameleon | 12-28 grams (0.4-1 ounces) | 12-25 grams (0.4-0.9 ounces) |
Note: These are just averages based on adult weight.
Chameleon may be less or more, depending on a multitude of factors.
Proper Chameleon Diet
One of the best things to do as an owner to keep your Chameleon at a healthy weight is to feed them properly.
Feeding chameleons isn’t hard at all, but you do need to make sure you know what you’re doing.
Chameleons are insectivores, which means they eat insects as their main source of food.
In captivity, crickets are one of the best staple foods for chameleons.
Some smaller species (which aren’t commonly kept as pets) may need smaller insects.
You also may want to adjust the insects if the baby Chameleon is too small to eat the cricket you have available.
Read more about how to feed baby chameleons.
For adult chameleons, the steps are pretty simple.
You only need to feed them every other day.
During this feeding, you set aside a 10 to 15-minute period in which you give the Chameleon a few crickets at a time.
If they eat all the crickets, you add more for the rest of the time.
After the timer is up, remove the crickets.
Continuing to add crickets for as long as the Chameleon will eat may end up in an overweight Chameleon.
Obesity can cause as many health problems as an underfed chameleon.
Crickets should be no larger than the distance between the chameleon’s eyes.
Any larger than this and the Chameleon may end up choking on the crickets.
In some cases, the Chameleon can swallow the cricket, but the food may end up impacted in the digestive system.
This impaction causes constipation at best, or it may cause paralysis and death at worst.
Always check the size of the crickets compared to the specific size of your Chameleon.
Feeding crickets of the right size and at the right time is a major part of their diet, but you need to do more.
In captivity, reptiles are in danger of developing calcium deficiencies.
To combat this, you need to provide a calcium supplement along with the cricket food.
The most common and easiest way to do this is to sprinkle a calcium powder supplement over the crickets before feeding them to the chameleons.
These supplements are easy to do, and they work pretty well.
We strongly recommend doing this with every single feeding.
Go to a pet store or buy an online powder supplement designed with reptiles in mind.
We recommend this powder supplement by Flukers.
It’s affordable, works well, and easy to use.
- Recommended for reptiles or amphibians that are kept indoors
- Promotes healthy bones and vital bodily functions
The other main supplement technique you want to do is called gut loading.
Gut loading crickets means you feed them a meal packed with nutrients 24 hours before you feed the crickets to your pets.
This requires more planning and work ahead of time, and it’s a little harder to do because you need to mess with the crickets instead of just leaving them be.
Gut loading is possible with natural foods, but most people find it easier and prefer to use a packaged product.
Again, we recommend this Fluker’s gut loading cricket feed.
- Allows insect-eating pets to benefit not only from the nutritional value of the insect itself, but from the insect's nutrient-gut content as well
- Provides added calcium
Gut loading is typically considered better than powdering because the crickets will have the nutrients in their system.
When the Chameleon eats the crickets, it absorbs the calcium more efficiently than through a powder.
Most people gut load their crickets once per week and sprinkle them with powder the rest of the time.
This system works well with most kinds of chameleons.
Ultimately it’s up to you, but we do recommend sprinkling every single feeding.
Conclusion
We hope you find this information about how much a chameleon weighs helpful.
Use the chart from above to see if your Chameleon is in danger of malnutrition or overweight.
If you find it’s not quite right, check your feeding habits and adapt to meet the needs of your reptile.
Use the other information about proper feeding to make sure the weight doesn’t become a problem for your pet.
