Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I don't know how many of you will remember, but I had gotten a WC Mali from the pet shop I work at who was in pretty bad shape last fall. After a vet visit and a couple doses of panacur he perked right up, regained some color, was much more active, and plumped up from 98g to around 155g or so. He's been perfectly healthy and happy for months, until tonight when I decided to give him a bath to help with shedding. He hadn't had one for a while and seemed to enjoy it, and he let out a HUGE load (but not initially abnormal looking) in the water so I took him out, dried him off and put him back. But when I went to flush the water, I noticed a TON of little white rice-sized worms floating around (like 50 or so? I flushed it and kinda wish I'd saved it now). Needless to say it's off to the vet on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure he had pinworms last time, but I sort of have a feeling this might actually be a tapeworm... Can anyone clarify this? Also, now I'm wondering if his current plumpness is normal weight gain, or if it may be due to a parasite? It's just so odd that this would surface now after I've had him for so long, and his stools before this have all seemed perfectly normal.

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1.0 RES, Spunky
1.0 African mud turtle (P. castaneus), "Francois the Tortois"
1.0.1 Mali Uromastyx, Ajani, Guban(Goober)
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa, Nico
0.0.1 Northern Blue Tongue Skink, Owajabi(Jabi)
3.1 Cats
1/2.0 rabbit (friend and I went 50/50)
0.1 Gerbils
1.0 Betta, Nigel

Do you feed crickets? Crickets can transmit pinworms to reptiles, reptiles will also pass cricket eggs in their stools, these undigested cricket eggs can look very worm like.

A lot of herbivorous reptiles also carry big loads of worms naturally (I think that they're strongyloides). Some think that these worms may even aid in digestion, but in captivity their levels can get too high and lead to disease, so most people get them treated as a preventative. I'm pretty sure that larval worms present in the stool are one of the diagnostic features of strongyloides infections, but a fecal should tell you exactly what you're dealing with.

If you do feed crickets, open up an adult female and take a look at the eggs and make sure that you weren't seeing cricket eggs first.

-Alice

The tapeworm proglotids / segements that I've seen in feces have always had a very flat rectangular appearence.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Never fed him crickets, and nothing has really changed in regards to diet or anything else that I'm aware of... I know that a certain level of parasites to aid in digestion is normal... but this certainly looked anything but normal. Oh well, a trip to the vet should provide some answers. I'd better try to get a fecal done on my other one too just in case, not housed together but one never knows...
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1.0 RES, Spunky
1.0 African mud turtle (P. castaneus), "Francois the Tortois"
1.0.1 Mali Uromastyx, Ajani, Guban(Goober)
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa, Nico
0.0.1 Northern Blue Tongue Skink, Owajabi(Jabi)
3.1 Cats
1/2.0 rabbit (friend and I went 50/50)
0.1 Gerbils
1.0 Betta, Nigel