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My new male two-horned MHD (Acanthosaura capra) is wild caught (few people breeding them here yet), and is ridden with parasites (no surprise).

On Wednesday, I did a direct smear from some diluted fecal material in his water dish (he'd only pooped in his water dish so far, and I was eager to check him out), and I saw some rather frightening little monsters. Of course, Murphy's Law prevailed, and I didn't have my good camera on me. These photos were taken at 10x, the worms varied in size from roughly 1/16 to 1/8 the microscope field:

Once again, sorry the pics suck. If it's any help, they had nasty little serrated edges to both "lobes" of their cranial end.

Today, the little guy amazingly pooped outside his water, so I got to do the works (float/centrifuge/smear). Unfortuantely the little worms did not appear again, but he has a very obvious Capillaria infection:

...and something else that I'm really not too sure what it is:

(At 100x)
Here's a video of the egg or capsule at 100x being focused in and out, you can really appreciate the roundness and depth in this one...

So those strange little worms and the unID'd egg/capsules are puzzling me

Christina
www.herptiles.net

Those first organisms are a type of freshwater zooplankton called a rotifer. They are filter feeders on algae and bacteria, are not parasitic, and cannot survive internally. The serrated lobes you see are their filtering structures. They had to have come from a water source and not the lizards.

The second photo appears to have two different eggs. The upper right egg appears to be a Capillaria, but the lower left egg has the large end structures and perfect symmetry that would lead me to believe that it is a type of whipworm. Capillaria and whipworm eggs look very similar, but the key point is symmetry and the size of the end structures.

That last egg looks like a type of ascarid, but I am not positive about that one. Amazing variety you found.

Kelly

Hi Kelly,

Thanks for the reply. What a relief to hear that the worms weren't parasites

A while back when I first saw Capillaria in my female MHD, and again when I saw that the eggs varied on the fecal, I Googled it for images and found that there is a lot of species variation in egg capsule size, shape, symmetry, and operculum size. I've seen a few photos of Capillaria with the sharp, very symmetrical shape like the ones you describe in the floatation, but whipworms hadn't crossed my mind. I'd feel fine saying he has a Capillaria and/or trichurid infection.

About the last one, I agree about the ascarid notion. After a bit more searching, it looks similar to Ophidascaris.

The good news is that fenbendazole should take care of all of these

Christina