Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, it wasn't the tail bone sticking through the boa's tail (see Bare Bone post below) but rather an Alaria parasite! The vet identified it today and extracted two. Hopefully the course of medication the vet is administering will get rid of any others.

Has anyone else seen this parasite before. The vet indicated it was very rare, has never seen one before and has to research it further.

Many thanks to those who offered suggestions.

Here's a photo of the Alaria parasite coming out of the snake's tail. When I first saw it, the parasite was straight and I thought it was exposed bone.

Better photo

Yikes!! I don't recall hearing of an internal parasite emerging like that before. Good luck with the snake!

WOW!!! That's the strangest thing I've ever seen in a boa.

I'm glad your boa is going to be alright.

Maybe it's a good thing that you had that little accident and discovered this problem.

Was your boa wild caught or captive bred? If it was captive bred.... I wonder if there's others in the litter with the same problem?? If it was a wild caught import.... I wonder if there were any more in the batch with the same problem??

Either way, you should contact the person you got it from and let them know. There could be other boas out there with the same problem. You could save others from going through the same thing you've gone through with your boa.

Man, that's VILE!!! Glad to hear they got removed! What type of treatment did the vet give in regards to wormers?

I just looked it up on the online, they referred to them as "flukes", so that's a bit more familiar to me. There wasn't any reference to their exiting the body except in fecal matter. I wonder if the impact with the hide box had something to do with it coming out like that?
There was this passage that I found interesting:
Alaria spp. infections are acquired by dogs and cats via ingestion of a wide variety of intermediate or paratenic hosts (particularly frogs and snakes) that harbor immature flukes,.

I really don't think of dogs and cats having that many opportunities to eat reptiles or amphibians, but that makes it sound like a common occurrence.

Thanks for the update.