Eye Bulging

It's pretty normal for some reptiles to "bulge" their eyes out. They have a little blood vessel flap they can open that releases blood into their eye sockets, forcing their eyes to push out into their eye lids. When they are done, the little flap opens again and the blood returns to the vessel.

The first time you see eye bulging, you might be creeped out. It looks like their eyes are going to explode.

I've seen it on bearded dragons, chameleons, and iguanas.

They do it if their eyes are itchy or if their skin is shedding or if there is something in their eyes or if they are bored or whatever. My beardie rescue Dory had a malfunction with the blood vessel flap behind one eye and so her eye was perpetually swollen. Turbo, my sweetheart iguana, developed an aneurysm behind one of his eyes and it was a mess every time he rubbed the eye and it ruptured. That poor iguana lost SO much blood. He eventually had to have is eye removed because it had died after being shoved up into his eyelid for so long.

So next time you see your beardie (or iguana or chameleon) and it looks like their eyes are going to bulge out of their heads, don't panic. It's totally normal. :)