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What the HELL would make a ball python's tongue rot and fall out? I'm dead serious. I have been checking my remaining animals twice every day (once when I get up, once when I get home from work) to make sure they're still doing OK. No one has shown any signs of the same weird RI, all have been eating and doing well. This morning, I noticed one of my breeder females had a swollen neck area right underneath her jaw (looked like a mouthful of water if that had been possible). I opened her mouth, saw nothing but clear, pink normal flesh and no bubbles down her throat or anything. She is breathing just fine, not a single sound, no swollen areas otherwise, and normal movement. Tonight, she had the same swelling -- so I opened her mouth again, and decided to push on the swollen area to see if some kind of fluid would come up...

INSTEAD, HER WHOLE DAMN TONGUE MUSCLE SQUEEZED UP AND OUT AND FELL ON THE FLOOR.

I damn near dropped the snake because it freaked me the hell out. I looked at her carefully and she had NO visible infection, no blood (not even a single drop), no nothing. The hole where the tongue rests is normal and pink, like the rest of her mouth. I put her back in her tub, grabbed a ziploc bag, turned it inside out, and grabbed the tongue off the floor and closed it inside the bag. It looks like it is covered in some kind of substance -- honestly it reminds me of plaque -- the same yellow crap that builds up on human teeth. The base of the muscle was dead, the tip still black and forked like usual. The entire tongue is there -- there is nothing left in her mouth. These are the best pics I could get:

What on Earth could cause this? I have never heard of this before in my life...nor have I ever seen anything like this. This didn't happen with the snakes that died from the RI, so I don't know if this is related or something entirely different. She has never been sick and her mouth is perfectly clean. My vet is closed for the next 4 days -- what the heck am I supposed to do? I'm thinking of calling him at home and seeing if he will come open the clinic just for an hour so I can bring her in and he can look at her and look at the tongue. I put it in the fridge. Is she basically going to die now? Can she eat and live without a tongue?

Guys, I am so freaked out right now that I am shaking and I think I'm going to throw up...
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors

seen. I am hoping you don't loose your whole collection. I would think the only place to begin looking is in connection with you other problems. Best of lucky with you situation.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

The 6 that died from the virus didn't have this kind of swelling in this area, and their tongues were fine (2 had them out when I found them dead and they were clean and normal). The female that this happened to doesn't have any other issues -- no breathing problems, no chest/kidney swelling, no gasping, no wheezing, nothing that the others did. I'm lost...
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors

now that's odd as hell...and i am totally clueless as well...but,just thinking out loud here,the first thing that came to mind was the possibility of her having a seizure and in the process severed her tongue?..(like maybe she perforated it,and then it went necro?)

unreal nightmare Jen...hope you can get some closure on all of this..
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Charles Glaspie

I've seen it happen when Stomatasis either starts or enters in the tongue sheath. Just like any infection, if not caught within whatever time frame, will start destroying tissue. More often than not it's not noticed. The only real sign it's happening is the lack of the animal using it's tongue, which may or may not be hard to detect depending on the keeper and the kept.

I'm inclined to agree with Eric, although I've never seen anything like this. I'd call the vet.

Quig
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Don't interupt me when I'm talkin' to myself

im no vet, but i'd bet a pair of b-grade pastels that your snake somehow hit and wrapped a recent food item in such that the rodent was able to bite away at the base of the snake's tongue area while the rodent's head/snout was indside the snake's mouth during the struggle. snakes get bit by rodents they are coiling all the time...it is bound to happen inside the physical feature they actually grab and swallow them with eventually...probably happens more than people realize, we just non't notice little bites inside the mouth generally, but many of the albeit infrequent, random cheek or lip swellings keepers encounter may be attributed to this. im sure snakes have developed super capacity to resist infection inside the mouth, and recover relatively quickly, but a partially severed tongue is another story.

i say this for two main reasons:

1)the snake seemd to be fine in every other way, and was not exhibiting any other symptoms of sickness as you describe.
2)because the tongue itself looks like it was only partially severed, infected, and yet still had a small spot of blood on it showing that it may have still been connected for a while until the infection's local swelling finally overcame all blood circulation, effectively killing the tongue that remained in the snake's mouth until it rotted away enough that you were finally able to pop it out. now you can say you popped out a snake tongue! something to brag about at the water cooler next week at work! lol!
3) the tongue appears to me to have been still connected by a small fiber and so the snake was able reteract it and swallow the cunning rodent who bit it. if the tongue had been completely bit off, and made it out of the snake, or down the snake's throat with the rodent, the snake's immune system probably would never have swollen up us much as it did trying to push a dead, rotting tongue out it's sheath.

I'm not sure where you're seeing the severed part? I looked at the whole thing and squished it around, it is solid -- no cuts, tears, or holes. I also don't see how a rat could bite the tongue when ball pythons don't strike with their tongues out, and every rat I've ever seen grabbed by the head has too much jaw pressure around its face to be able to even move a whisker let alone its jaw to bite...??? Also, the last time she ate anything was December 1st -- would it have taken this long?
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors

Jen,
I have no answer for you on this one. There's been some pretty good points made in this thread. I just have no clue and have never seen anything like it. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for all your problems as of late. You've had a really rough time. Hang in there, we're all behind you. As always anything I can do let me know. Try your best to enjoy your holiday. Brian (BHB)

www.myspace.com/bhbreptiles
www.snakebytes.tumblr.com

Thanks Brian -- everything always has to happen all at once. This one just really dumbfounds me, it is so bizarre and unexpected...it is something I would never have contemplated happening to a snake. I called Dr. Gordon and left a message -- I hope he calls me back. I don't want to ruin his holiday, but if he could just see her for 5 minutes to determine if she needs irrigation or antibiotics, it would make all the difference.

I haven't gone to bed yet and at this point, I don't think I can. What's next?
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors

Jen,

I would really look into everything that controls your environmental conditions and whatever other electronics/technology you use. It would seem to me that whatever catalyst that caused the virus to wake up is the same thing that started this. I think it is just too coincedental that both these things occured in the same time frame. I've experienced something similair years ago, and it was almost slap you in the face stupid what caused the whole fiasco. I could very well be wrong, but from my past experiences I don't think the tongue deal is related to whatever the virus is doing. Too many differentials between the two in my opinion.

I already looked at temps and everything way back when this first started. Everything is fine, nothing is broken or not working, all temps are what they are set to be by the Helix thermostats. Back of the racks over the heat cable is 90 (upped to 94 right after the ones had become sick), front of the rack is 78-80, room temp is 75. Everything is double-checked by multiple digital thermometers -- they all say the same thing. Humidity is controlled by a 13 gallon EssickAir humidifer set to keep it at 60% -- I fill the tanks every day. The first thing I did when this all started was change the filter and the wick, and clean out the entire thing in case it was a bacteria/mold problem. It wasn't -- didn't help anything.
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors

I am so sorry to hear about that. I wish there was some insight that I could give.

I called the clinic at 9am this morning, Dr. Gordon and Kari are both on vacation, but I talked to Dr. Lukas, who has been working with Dr. Gordon on the whole virus thing. She thinks that the snake may have bitten down on her own tongue by accident at some point when feeding, or that it got scratched by a rat claw, then after either of those occurances it ended up infected and the tissue died -- but because the snake can't spit things out like we can, she couldn't get rid of the decomposing tongue on her own. It had to be manually expelled, like what happened. She said the odds of a rat being able to bite the actual tongue is slim to none, and because there was no other inflammation, mucous, rotting tissue, etc. it doesn't sound like there was any kind of mouth rot or herpes infection. She said she should be just fine and heal well as it sounds like her body handled the infection OK on its own already. I asked if she needed antibiotics, she said it wasn't an absolute neccessity but that it couldn't hurt just to use them as a precaution. She agreed that this was definitely a very weird occurance and one for the books. They are going to open the clinic for limited hours on Monday so I can bring the tongue in then for them to look at.
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors

I'd like to see that in writing from the Doctor. If you dont mind? Happy Holidays Jen!!
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http://www.myspace.com/jasballpythons

My sympathy for the way things are going for you, lately. I've never heard of anything like that before. If your vet does a culture or anything of the sort and comes up with any more info, please share it with us.

Claude

My vet isn't going to sit down with a note pad and write down their opinion for some internet forum, Jas.
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors