A New Addition

We have a new addition in the hawaiian household, a baby Jackson's chameleon. I really wanted to name it Leon, because of chame'leon', but since its a girl (we think) we went with the more hawaiian name of Leona. She is about two and a half weeks old, born on July 12th.
Heidi and I searched for chameleons in the wild here on Maui but it turns out they are very hard to find. Then we got in touch with Cory who finds them on occasion doing yard work higher up on the slopes of the volcano. He saved a female chameleon and housed her with a male for about six months until one day he came home to find fourteen tiny baby chameleons crawling around the enclosure! Leona was one of these.
We brought her home yesterday evening and set up a little cage with sticks and leaves for her to climb on. We will mist the leaves a few times every day so she can get her water from the droplets, just like she would in the wild. We had to buy pinhead crickets instead of the bigger crickets because Leona is so tiny, about the size of Heidi's pinky.
Once we got her home she crawled around quite a bit and then worked her way to the top of the cage where she hung upside down...all night. She wasn't eating but we figured it was just her way of acclimating to a new environment.

Then this morning, while Heidi was on the phone with her parents, Leona snagged her first meal in her new home. All I saw was a nearby leaf move and Leona chomping away at something in her mouth! I was very relieved. Then we were very excited to see her continue to catch and eat at least five more pinhead crickets!