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The term microbiome has been very popular for some years now. In humans and animals, it refers to the totality of all microorganisms that colonise a living being. Most of them colonise the gastrointestinal tract. In the case of chameleons, there is only very limited literature on this topic. A master’s thesis from South Africa now deals with the bacterial composition of the microbiome in South African dwarf chameleons of the genus Bradypodion<\/em>.<\/p>\n 60 cheek swabs were collected from wild chameleons in KwaZulu-Natal. Of these, 20 were cheek swabs from Bradypodion melanocephalum<\/em>, 20 from Bradypodion thamnobates<\/em> and 20 from Bradypodion setaroi<\/em>. After sampling, the same 60 animals were transported in cloth bags to the research base, where the animals were kept in 3.3 l boxes for 24 hours to obtain faecal samples. Since not all of the original 60 chameleons defecated, faeces were collected from additional chameleons.<\/p>\n The samples were all genetically tested. 40.43% of the samples contained Firmicutes<\/em>, a similarly large proportion of the samples contained Proteobacteria<\/em> with 36.86%. Bacteroidota<\/em> followed with some distance, which could be detected in just under 16% of the samples. Verrucomicrobiota, Fusobacteriota, Actinobateriota, Spirochetes, Desulfobacteroa, Cyanobacteria, Thermoplamatota, Deferribacterota, Synergistota, Campylobacterota, Deinococcota, Halobacterota, Euryarchaeota, Elusimicrobiota <\/em>and Myxococcota<\/em> were found in significantly smaller numbers (up to 2%).<\/p>\n