Meet Kylie the chameleon - photography

I was speaking with @inber earlier on her post - check it out - where she discussed the artwork of the Hildebrandt brothers and mentioned her love of dragons to me. Tim Hildenbrandt painted many of the original covers for the Dragonriders of Pern book series by Anne McCaffrey.

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In my youth I had a great love for the books and I believe that it when I grew a fascination for our reptilian friends, real or imaginary. When I was in my early 20s I kept 2 Green Iguanas called Ziggy and Zelda - unfortunately I don't have photos of them but here's what they looked like.

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Very dragon like I think you'll agree. In fact you can see a lot of similarities between iguanas and the dragons depicted by Tim Hildebrandt - he must have used them for reference.

Seven years ago I achieved my dream of looking after a Veiled chameleon.

The veiled chameleon is a species of chameleon native to the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Other common names include cone-head chameleon and Yemen chameleon

Of all lizards I find chameleons the most fascinating, from the drastic colour changes some species can achieve, the independently moving eyes and their extrudable tongue they use to catch their prey.

In this shot I managed to catch her just as her tongue was shooting out

We had Kylie from when she was six weeks old, bought from a local breeder. She was barely 4 inches long but cute as a button

Why Kylie? I'll let Boy George answer that one

Kylie was quite friendly for a lizard and rather curious. We handled her daily so she was very used to human contact

On an evening she would like to climb up onto my head or curl up behind my ear for the warmth.

But equally she loved coming outside on the rare occasions we got the sun in the UK

As all reptiles do, as she grew she shed her skin. We made sure her vivarium was kept warm and humid to help her peel. We inevitably had to help her remove the odd piece of stubborn skin, usually from the back of her head or between her toes

As a youngster she liked some vegetation like watercress or lettuce, along with her insects such as crickets and small spiders. As she got older she enjoyed a diet of mealworms, crickets and locusts

These are all photos of the same chameleon, trust me. Not only do they change colour and patterning, they are adept at changing their shape too!

Here is a close-up of her beautiful skin

We had Kylie in our lives for just over 3 years. It might sound stupid but we still miss her and her cheeky little face.

All photos were taken on an iPhone 4

I hope you enjoyed this post and would appreciate an upvote and a resteem if you can. Follows are welcome too.

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What is the most unusual animal you have kept? Let me know in the comments below

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