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of W/C, or Imported origins?

A small dark colored hair like thing about 2cm long found on cage substrate or possibly hanging from the snake's mouth. When hydrated (in sterile water or normal saline)it is transparent, open on one end and tapered to a point on the other. It looks like a small skin shed from something. They are often found hydrated in the water bowl. I don't recall ever seeing one from a captive born animal, but frequently from wild-caught Cribos. They seem to represent no problem whatsoever. I asked a vet about them several years ago, but he had no idea what they were or where they came from. I have a call in now to one of the Atlanta Zoo reptile vets to see if he has any ideas. I have not been able to find reference to this in any of the books, papers, websites, etc. that deal with Drymarchon. I have never seen this in any other snakes or lizards.

I hadn't really thought about these things for a while, but I received an E-mail from another Dry keeper a couple of days ago asking if I had ever seen them before. It sort of got my curiosity up again.

My suspicion is that it may be a molt of a Rhabdias nematode from the lung of the snake representing the final molt from L4 to adult worm. These normally cause no problem in snakes as long as the load is not overwhelming. Treatment may be somewhat problematic in Indigo Snakes because the drug of choice for Rhabdias is Ivermectin (not a good choice for Drymarchon).

Anybody else ever seen it or know what it is?

Check out the 2nd paragraph of the link I attached.
By the way, I pronounce Drymarchon the #3 way but I could definitely be wrong.
Another one I hear a lot of different ways is Pituophis.

Chris
shedding link

That may very well be it...I never really thought about that. The funny thing is that I never see it on any other snakes, just big wild caught Dry's. I've never even seen it from a big Python or Boa that I can recall. I find them frequently in my melanurus cages, but not from the big rubidus. I guess the correlation to wild-caugth really could be just coincendental.

Like I said earlier, it has never seemed to be related to any particular problems, just something odd that I'd find once in a while. I took one once an dmounted it and looked at it under the microscope and could find nothing at all that would be helpful in identifying it, asked a vet and he had no idea. I'd pretty much gotten to the point that I just didn't pay any attention to it anymore, because it didn't seem to be related to any health issues. The only thing I could think of was Rhabdias lungworms, which you would expect to see in wild-caught animals and are usually not treated anyway unless they are causing respiratory problems.

Maybe it is just tongue sheds...the fact that I have never seen them in any other snakes just means that I just didn't see them. Doesn't necessarily mean they weren't there.

I can't say that I have seen this before. I have a really good suggestion, there is a company in New York called Antech Labs that can perform a parasite ID. You may have to work through a vet, but they may be able to ID it. If you want to pursue this route and run into any road blocks feel free to call on me.
Sincerely,
Roly

Well, see the problem is this..if it were a parasite, I can ID it. This thing has no distinguishing characteristics. I think what I'll do is wait until I find another one, section and stain it and look for cellular structure under higher magnification. I only loked at it at 40x, just to see if I could see anything morphologically that might identify it. It is really just a small tapered transparent tube. I never looked at the cell structure. I'm betting now, after looking at the link that Chris sent, that it is just a tongue shed. I never really thought about snakes shedding the skin on their tongue in one piece (or at least one piece for each fork) until I looked at that site. I just figured the tongue shed just like the epithelial lining of the mouth, on a cellular level, constantly sloughing off old cells and replacing them. I don't recall anything about this in school, but that's been a long time ago and to tell you the truth, there's quite a bit about those years that the memory is a little foggy.

Dry's drop them a lot in the water dishes. Perfectly normal.

Doug T

OH,
I’m glad you posted that question here. I have been everywhere trying to fine the possible answer to these mysterious snake hairs. Tongue Sheds, who would have thought.

Only my Dry’s drop these sheds.

Thank you for posting that question and thanks to Gila and Doug T. for saving me the price of another stool sample. Not to mention another bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

Well, the mystery is actually solved. I went around and did a waterbowl survey of all of my other snakes, and I found these things in two more water bowls besides the Dry's. One in a Black Pine Snake's water bowl and one in a Gray Banded King Snake's water bowl. They are sized proportionately to the snake, so that's definitely what they are. I guess I just never noticed them before in any other snake's cage because they are smaller. Strange. I need to be more observant.

By the way, I spoke to the vet yesterday (a reptile vet for the Atlanta Zoo) and he didn't know that snakes shed their tongue skin that way either. He was under the impression that it was a continous sloughing/replacement process just like the rest of the inside of the mouth, as was I. Live and learn.