A REPTILE keeper from Bromley is tickled pink after successfully breeding a rare species of chameleon.

Actor Guy Edwards, 18, of Oakley Road, Bromley, started collecting reptiles 10 years ago but recently decided to get more adventurous.

So he bought a pair of the rare Eliot species of chameleon and within months they had babies.

He is now one of the few people in the country to have managed to breed this type of chameleon in captivity.

He said: "I was optimistic they would breed but I wasn't sure they would because no one else seemed to have done it, or if they had, there was no news of it."

Mr Edwards went to libraries and book shops to find out how to raise the creatures.

Soon he had turned his bedroom into a reptile house to accommodate them.

His ambition is to one day keep crocodiles and Pit Viper snakes.

He said: "I love keeping reptiles, they are so much better than cats and dogs.

"I'll never be without them. If my dream girl came along and didn't like my reptiles I would have to choose my animals over her."