Why an old chameleon's tongue falls short
Shooting the tongue is a whole-body performance: the eyes judge the distance, the jaw opens, and the tongue launches and hauls the prey back in a fraction of a second. In an elderly chameleon the machinery tires. Muscle strength fades, the aim wanders, and the tongue may travel only half its old distance or land beside the insect instead of on it. Hydration and general condition play a part too, which is why a shortening tongue is worth noting as a change in the animal, not just an inconvenience at feeding time. He is not being fussy; he is hunting with equipment that no longer reaches.
Bring the food to the chameleon
Cup feeding is the workhorse solution. Fix a smooth-sided feeding cup securely to a branch right beside the perch your chameleon favours, at a height where the insects inside sit well within his reduced range. A few live feeders moving in the cup catch his eye and trigger strikes at close quarters, where even a weak shot connects. Some keepers hold the cup by hand for the first sessions so it can be positioned exactly where he is already looking.
Tong feeding covers what the cup misses. Offer one insect at a time from soft-tipped feeding tongs, held a few centimetres in front of his mouth — close enough that a half-length tongue still reaches. Keep your hand low and steady, and wait; a hand looming from above makes many chameleons freeze rather than feed.
A third option is close-range free feeding: release a few feeders onto the plant or branch he is sitting on, within easy reach, and stay to supervise so anything uneaten is removed rather than left to wander the enclosure and trouble him later.
Make every attempt easier
Choose smaller, softer prey that takes less force to pull back and swallow, and feed when he is warm and alert — mid-morning, after a basking spell — rather than late in the day when an old chameleon is winding down. Keep the misting or dripper routine faithful: a well-hydrated chameleon feeds more willingly and shoots more reliably. Dust feeders as you always have. Above all, be patient in short bursts — several brief attempts spread across the day achieve more than one long session, and if he closes his eyes or turns away, he is asking you to stop, so stop.
When the feeding problem is a vet problem
Keep a rough weekly tally of what he actually eats, and weigh him if he tolerates it calmly. Book a reptile vet if he starts missing even the close-range targets, drops insects after catching them, eats steadily less week on week, or shows sunken eyes or a thinning tail base alongside the poor feeding — signs the tongue trouble may be one part of a wider decline that needs examining in person.
Recording the shortened tongue range, roughly when you first noticed it, and the cup-and-tong method that now gets him fed, in his Pet Passport on KinsLe gives the vet the whole sequence at a glance instead of a guessing game at the appointment.