Well, as some of you know. I have a lot of weird pets, and many have commented to me about how cool Tut the Afghanistanian Veiled Chameleon was.

Last night, I noticed him lying on the floor of his enclosure. He normally gets very agitated if I'm near the tank and he did nothing. I was eating dinner with  my family when I saw it (it's enclosure is by the dinner table) and really didn't want to point it out to my sisters, but I was pretty sure it was dead. 

Anyway, after dinner finished and my sisters had left, I  unzipped the side of his mesh enclosure and figured out he was still alive.  We were without air conditioning for about 10 days very recently, during a pretty nice humidity/heat wave here in Michigan.  Suffice to say, the house was unbearable and I figured maybe Tut was dehydrated.

Tut also had injured his tongue when he was younger, getting it caught on something in the enclosure while snapping  at a cricket, and I was informed at the time that sometimes these type of injuries disable the animal from eating and they have to be force fed.  He kept eating, only with limited range of motion with his tongue, and seemed very healthy, growing to probably over 2 feet in length including the tail in a little more than a year.

The possibility also went through my mind that maybe his condition had worsened and he couldn't eat anymore, becoming weak from that. So for a few days, I've been babying my mom's chameleon and handfeeding it crickets because I would do anything to make my mom happy. 

It was a weird bonding experience, because the chameleon would have never let me hand feed it  before, and was graciously accepting, and not showing it's "war paint" as I had become accustomed to seeing from him.. (They turn all blotchy and get super colorful when they're mad).

We took Tut to a veteranary hospital this afternoon and they determined that his kidneys were failing. We had the clinic put him out of his misery instead of letting him suffer, and he died this afternoon.  Rest in peace Tut. One of the most interesting pets I've ever owned.