Watermelon seems like a lavish meal for chameleons, but could chameleons eat watermelon? In most instances, a fully grown watermelon fruit is much bigger than the size of a common chameleon. With that said, can chameleons eat watermelon, either in the wild or in captivity?
Chameleons can and will indeed eat watermelons. Watermelon is not just a good meal, it’s also a good source of nutrients and hydration for them. However, watermelon should only be fed to chameleons once every fortnight to prevent any complications.
Watermelon is a great source of hydration and consists of various nutrients that will be helpful for the growth of a chameleon. However, feeding the chameleon one too many watermelons could also be harmful to the pet.
If you are planning to feed watermelon to your chameleon, it is crucial that you read this article. There are many benefits when feeding watermelon to your chameleon but there are also dangers that you should be aware of.
Nutrients Found In Watermelon That Benefit Chameleons
Watermelon is a flowering plant species that consists mostly of water. In addition to that, watermelon also contains minerals and vitamins that are needed by your pet chameleon. On top of that, watermelon can be both a snack and a source of hydration for chameleons.
Water
Water is by far the most found nutrient in watermelons. It is estimated that almost ninety percent of a watermelon fruit consists of water.
Hence, it will be a great source of hydration on a sunny day for your pet chameleon. In the wild, chameleons often use watermelons on the ground to hydrate themselves.
However, in captivity, chameleons have their source of water. Yet, adding small portions of watermelon into their weekly diet would come in handy.
The additional water the chameleon consumes through watermelon will add to its energy levels and keeps the chameleon hydrated. Hence, adding watermelon to the diet of your pet chameleon ensures that they are always hydrated.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A, also known as beta-carotene will help develop healthy eyes, muscle strength, as well as strong gums and teeth.
Generally, humans and several species of animals could produce their own vitamin A in their bodies through a substance called pro-vitamin A from their diet.
Unfortunately, chameleons cannot absorb pro-vitamin A and produce vitamin A through its body. Hence, chameleons need to consume food that is rich in vitamin A.
Watermelon contains a high level of vitamin A and provides the chameleon with an adequate quantity of vitamin A in its diet.
Vitamin B-6
Another vitamin found in watermelons is vitamin B6. Also known as pyridoxine, this vitamin is crucial for the creation of red blood cells in the chameleon.
In addition to that, vitamin B6 also generates neurotransmitters, which are important for the chameleon’s ability to change its color. Chameleons do not have vitamin B6 readily existing in their system.
Thus, making it essential that they consume a diet rich in vitamin B6. Fortunately, watermelon contains a high level of vitamin B6. Vitamin B6 also helps in preventing unwanted heart issues in chameleons.
With its ability to create red blood cells, vitamin B6 enhances the blood flow in the chameleon’s system and reduces the chances of heart problems.
Moreover, by consuming watermelon that is high in vitamin B6, the skin texture of the chameleon would be better. Other than that, Vitamin B6 also strengthens the immune system of the chameleon.
As pet owners, we know how important and dependent chameleons are on their eyesight. Chameleons like to roll their eyes around in every direction and be aware of everything in their vicinity.
Even with the meals the chameleon consumes, they would observe it through their eyes first before eating it. Vitamin B6 helps in protecting their eyesight and even enhancing it slightly.
In short, Vitamin B6 will promote eye health for chameleons and assists them in avoiding eye diseases. Hence, the inclusion of food high in vitamin B6 is crucial for the wellbeing of chameleons.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is also known as ascorbic acid. It plays a major part in the growth and development of chameleons. One of the most important roles of Vitamin C is its ability to repair wounded body tissues in a chameleon.
It is especially important to feed a high amount of vitamin C to wounded chameleon to help out in its healing process. If you would reminisce back when you were still a kid, I’m sure you can recall being afforded a chewable vitamin C tablet on every doctor’s visit.
This was mainly to enhance our body’s immune system against the likes of flu and viruses. Likewise, a diet rich in vitamin C will also help in building a stronger immune system for your pet chameleon.
Vitamin C will make sure your chameleon avoids contacting any viruses or diseases. Furthermore, by including vitamin C in the chameleon’s diet, it would be helpful in their ability to absorb iron too.
In addition to all that, vitamin C is also crucial for the chameleon to maintain its cartilage, bones, and teeth. If the chameleon were to lack vitamin C in its diet, then it would directly affect the health and body system of the chameleon.
Nonetheless, vitamin C is commonly found in many different types of food that a chameleon consumes. These include insects, fruit, or vegetables, it all contains at least a small amount of vitamin C.
Magnesium
In addition to the above-mentioned nutrients, magnesium also plays a crucial part in the diet of a chameleon. The most important reason to have magnesium in your chameleon’s diet is its ability to enhance the blood circulation system.
With a better-equipped blood circulation system, the heart health of the chameleon would automatically improve. Furthermore, magnesium helps in regulating nerve function, maintaining blood sugar levels, and also controlling body pressure.
By including watermelon in the diet of your pet chameleon, you would be introducing both vitamin B6 and magnesium into their systems.
Vitamin B6 would assists in the creation of new red blood cells, and magnesium would enhance the flow of those red blood cells being regulated properly. Thus, ensuring the chameleon is well protected in terms of heart and vein health.
Calcium
One of the most important nutrients that are required for most living organisms is calcium. Calcium is most commonly known for its importance in the formation and strengthening of bone structures in humans.
This is also true for chameleons. For a chameleon to have a strong and healthy bone structure, they require sufficient amounts of calcium in their diet.
This is especially important for growing chameleons. As the amount of calcium needed by a juvenile chameleon is more than an adult chameleon.
Moreover, calcium is also responsible for allowing the blood in chameleons to clot. This is helpful in preventing excessive bleeding if the chameleon is wounded or injured.
In addition to that, calcium also plays a major part in permitting the muscles to contract, this may not sound so crucial until you realize that the heart of a chameleon also requires muscles to contract for it to beat.
Hence, with a high amount of calcium in watermelons, it makes a good addition to the diet of chameleons to absorb the required amounts of calcium.
A lack of calcium in the body of chameleons causes their bones to be brittle or easily breakable and also makes the chameleon more prone to metabolic bone diseases (MBD).
Potassium
Potassium is also vastly found in watermelons. It isn’t just a mineral, it’s also an electrolyte. Potassium is most importantly needed for muscle works.
Just like calcium, potassium also helps control the heartbeat of chameleons, hence regulating their breathing. The chameleon’s body would use up the required amount of potassium and excess potassium would be removed through their kidneys.
Hence, do not be afraid that the chameleon is consuming too much potassium. On the other hand, a lack of potassium would make the chameleon weak and lethargic.
Therefore, it is best to include potassium in the diet of your pet chameleon. Watermelon contains a high amount of potassium and would be a good addition to the chameleon’s weekly diet.
Now that we know of the benefits of the various minerals and vitamins that are commonly found in watermelons, we also need to be wary of the dangers that come along with overfeeding your chameleon watermelons.
Precautions When Feeding Watermelons to Chameleons
Although watermelons are full of minerals and vitamins, there are some parts of the fruit that can be harmful to chameleons.
Chameleon’s digestive system is not similar to that of ours. Hence, it is important to know which parts of watermelon need to be avoided when feeding chameleons.
Seeds
As we are well aware, most watermelons are filled with seeds. Each watermelon fruit could have hundreds if not thousands of seeds in them.
Even though we usually consume watermelons with the seeds and later spit the seeds out, chameleons are not able to do so. When a chameleon eats watermelon, it will eat the seeds as well if it isn’t already removed.
Unfortunately, chameleons cannot spit the seeds back out. This causes the chameleon to swallow the seeds along with the fruit. The seeds will not get digested in the chameleon’s stomach, hence making it difficult to excrete.
This could also cause the chameleon to experience constipation. If you do realize that your chameleon has consumed the watermelon seeds, then do visit a vet to have it removed before it causes more complications.
Rind
The rind is the green part of the watermelon fruit that holds the water-rich pink soft part of the fruit. For us, this rind is edible. However, for chameleons, the rind is toxic for the chameleon.
Watermelon rind lacks the nutrients and vitamins found in the waterlogged parts of the fruit. The rind is, therefore, harder and contains little to no water.
When chameleons consume the rind, it will be difficult for them to chew on it and digest it as well. This causes their throat to be bruised and could also lead to constipation in the chameleon.
If the chameleon’s throat is bruised, it will affect the chameleon’s food consumption thereafter as well, causing a loss in appetite. The same could be said for constipation as well.
Thus, it’s important to remove both the seeds and the rind from the watermelon before feeding it to chameleons.
Too Much Water
Watermelon is a fruit that is very helpful with hydration, let it be humans or animals alike. However, in the case of chameleons, they shouldn’t be fed too much watermelon as it would cause their body to start bloating up with water.
Chameleons do not sweat or urinate like us humans, hence the water content needed by their body is much lower. Given they usually drink water, any addition of fluid is good, but too much of it becomes harmful for the chameleon.
When the chameleon has consumed too much liquid, they become overhydrated. This also leads to their stomach getting bloated and reduces their appetite.
In the long term, this is extremely dangerous for the health of the chameleon as it won’t be able to eat as much as it should.
The Advantages In Watermelon To Feed Chameleon
There are a couple of very useful advantages in watermelon that isn’t so common compared to many other fruits chameleons usually eat. These advantages make watermelon a really good source of nutrients for the chameleons to consume.
Not Too Acidic
Watermelon contains vitamin C which makes it acidic. However, that is the only acidic mineral in watermelon. Hence, compared to many other fruits and vegetables, watermelon acidity is much lower.
This comes in handy when feeding chameleons as lower acidity in the fruit means the chameleon can get the fruit digested much easily in their stomach.
On top of that, it’s also helpful in preventing their stomach contents from getting highly acidic which can lead to damage to the stomach linings.
Ease of Eating
Given the amount of water contained in watermelon and the fruit’s soft texture, it makes it easier for the chameleon to chew on watermelon bits.
It is generally known that when a meal can be grounded and crushed better when chewing, the nutrients in it will also be better absorbed. This is very useful as chameleons are known to get food stuck down their throats.
However, when consuming watermelon, chameleons will be able to chew it down to really small pieces and ensure it does not get stuck in their throat.
Moreover, it will also prevent constipation as the fruit is already broken down into small pieces before getting through to the stomach of the chameleon.
How to Feed Watermelon to Chameleons?
As previously mentioned, the most important thing to watch out for when feeding watermelon to chameleons is to remove the seeds and also avoid the rinds. With this done, the fruit can be fed to the chameleon directly, and here are a few ways to do so.
Cut Into Small Pieces
When feeding watermelon to chameleons, it’s best to cut the fruit into tiny little pieces before serving it to your pet. This is helpful because when they chew on smaller pieces, it will be easier for them to fit them into their mouth.
If the fruit isn’t broken down into small pieces, the chameleon might find it difficult to fit the fruit into its mouth. The chameleon might end up chewing on a bigger piece. This would make it difficult for it to chew comfortably and may also bruise the inner layers of the mouth.
Furthermore, given the chameleon’s trachea opening is placed on the bottom of its mouth, if the pieces are too big, the outflowing juice might accidentally enter the lungs and lead to suffocation for the chameleon. In regards to that, it is important to cut the watermelon into small pieces before feeding it to the chameleon.
Gut Loading
Although watermelon is very high in nutrients and vitamins, that doesn’t mean your chameleon is going to eat it. Chameleons are very skeptical about the food they consume and there can be no guarantees that they will enjoy watermelon.
However, if you would like to introduce watermelon into your pet chameleon’s diet against its wishes, the best way would be through gut loading. It is a common method used by many pet owners to feed nutrients from fruits and vegetables to their pets.
Gut loading is the action of feeding insects with the fruit or vegetable and then proceeding to feed the insect to your chameleon. This way, the chameleon is unknowingly consuming the fruit or vegetable as well.
In fact, gut loading is a very useful method in tricking chameleons to eat food they normally avoid. Through gut loading, the chameleon would be able to absorb the minerals and vitamins from the watermelon without directly eating the watermelon.
How Often to Feed Watermelon to Chameleons?
It is crucial to know how often to feed watermelon to chameleons as feeding them too often with watermelon is unhealthy. To avoid any unwanted complications, you should only feed watermelon to your chameleon once every fortnight.
Watermelon is a healthy and fabulous snack for your pet chameleon but it cannot solely depend on watermelon to obtain all required nutrition. Hence, mixing up the chameleon’s diet with different types of fruits and vegetables would be a good idea.
Besides, due to the large amount of water contained in the watermelon, chameleons cannot be fed watermelon too often. Letting your chameleon eat too much watermelon can lead to bloating which is discussed above.
To avoid overfeeding the chameleon with watermelon, it is suggested to include watermelon in the chameleon’s diet once a fortnight and increase it to once a week during dry seasons. If your pet chameleon is fed watermelon too often, most probably they will start bloating.
What Happens If You Feed Watermelon Too Often?
Due to the high content of water in watermelon, the most obvious problem your chameleon would face if fed watermelon too often is bloating. As previously mentioned, chameleons do not sweat or urinate like us humans.
Therefore, the excessive water that is being absorbed by the chameleon through watermelon would be retained in its body. This causes the stomach of the chameleon to start bloating.
As the bloating increases in size, your chameleon would stop eating. The bloated stomach would cause your chameleon to start losing its appetite and leads to your chameleon abandoning its food.
This condition is very unsafe to your chameleon and could lead to other complications like egg binding for female chameleons. If you have accidentally been feeding your pet chameleon with watermelon too often, then do make a trip to the vet for an inspection.
Conclusion
Chameleons can eat watermelon and it’s a very nutritious snack. They can snack on watermelons to keep themselves hydrated, especially during summer times.
In addition to that, watermelons are also high in many different types of vitamins and minerals that are useful for your chameleon’s body systems.
Nevertheless, special care is required when feeding chameleons watermelon. It is essential to make sure the seeds are removed from the fruit before serving it to your chameleon.
In addition to that, also be vigilant in making sure that the rind of the watermelon is not served as it could be harmful to chameleons. Other than its nutritious values, watermelon is also a very good snack for chameleons as it lacks the acidity of many other fruits and vegetables.
This assists the chameleon with its digestion process. Furthermore, due to its extremely high water content, watermelons are also very easily chewable by chameleons.
Just be sure to feed watermelon to chameleons in small pieces so that it’s easier for them to adjust it into their mouth. If your pet chameleon doesn’t enjoy watermelon but you still want the chameleon to absorb the nutritious value of watermelon, then do serve the fruit to the chameleon through gut loading.
Furthermore, feeding chameleons watermelon too often is very unhealthy. Even though watermelon is a good source of nutrition for your pet chameleon, feeding it too often could be detrimental to the chameleon’s wellbeing.
Watermelons do make a great snack for chameleons. That being said, watermelon should be fed in moderation to prevent any unwanted problems for your chameleon.
