Maturity and Receptiveness After you obtain at least one male and one female, you have to make sure they are mature and ready. It is good to start with captive born animals because you can be sure they are parasite free and know their age with almost complete certainty. For larger chameleons, sexual maturity is reached at about 8 to 12 months, or when they are almost full grown. Some smaller species, such as Carpet Chameleons (chamaeleo lateralis) reach maturity in only a couple of months because of their short life span of only a couple years. Check with information on your species to make sure of the age they should be first mated. If they are too young, it will be very stressful on them, especially females. If you do not know their ages, make your own decision by determining their size and comparing it to their adult length. If it is fairly close, you can assume they are mature, therefore you should try to mate them. If not, wait a couple of months, then try. Testing for receptiveness is the next step. You should always show the female to the male because males are very territorial. Males are receptive,