Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ha Ha got ya
I got a hatchling from this year that looked fine(no dorsal kink)when it hatched but after a week or two I noticed one kink on its back.
That was august .It still had the kink four weeks ago but now that it has eaten a few times the kink has vanished.
Have you guys had hatchlings that showed this same thing?
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Doug L

Hey Doug,

disappointed by the content after reading the subject line! lol

I have heard of this happening. I have acquired a few hatchings that have had small kinks on their spine that vanished after several meals. Not sure the biology behind it but the snakes have been fine ever since.

Where are you headed this spring?

Dave
DNS Reptiles

Doug I've seen the same thing in thayeri a couple times over the years.
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Randy Whittington

I forgot, I've also seen in in a couple greybands years ago. They had a couple of suttle kinks and after a few meals they were gone.
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Randy Whittington

Doug,

Interesting subject! I've noticed that a few times, myself. It shows up not only in triangulum, but in alterna, pyromelena, zonata, and the mexicana-complex animals, as well. Speaking with a few other "Lampro-nuts" has yielded some hypotheses. I tend to refer to the small bumps on an animal’s spine that repair themselves with food and growth as “knots”, while congenital and developmental kinks are still “kinks”. The most plausible idea, from a physiological and biochemical standpoint, seems to be the following:

Calcium, in its elemental and ionic forms, is used in many biological processes in animals. These include muscle contraction and nerve impulses, which are essential to the very life of the animal. Now, the yolk provided by the mother to see each offspring through embryonic development and until its first meal is a finite source of nutrients. That means, that until a neonate snake feeds, it’s surviving on the limited amount of calcium (and everything else…) rationed to it by its mother. Where does a baby snake get calcium to ensure that its nerves continue to fire and its heart continues to pump if it doesn’t have any dietary intake of the mineral? Its skeletal system seems like a rich source to pull from, in a sort of osteoporosis-like fashion. As the animal begins to feed on calcium-rich food items (pink mice filled with milk, lizards, etc.), some of that calcium is re-deposited in the skeletal system, allowing repair the skeletal degradation as well as growth.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject.

-Cole

L. t. gentilis - Kansas

Cole, that is one sharp analysis! That makes a lot of sense to me.
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Todd Hughes

Thx Cole
I was thinking the kink might be a dislocation or a subluxation.
When the snake had the first few big meals (lizard or pinkie)it acted to reduce the malallienment.Like a splint on a long bone fracture.The fact that this snake didnt show signs of the kink when born and only showed it a week later tells me this is a joint issue not a bone deformity.
cool stuff.
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Doug L

I follow you. Most of the little vertebral knots or kinks I've seen (that go away...) develop several week post hatch. Some of the animals in which I've seen the kinks show up have been held minimally or not at all, suggesting to me that I haven't directly caused them. Could they be dislocations from moving around in their tubs? Sure. Could they be demineralization of the bone? Sure. Could our two hypotheses be related? Sure! Cool stuff, and interesting that we've both (as well as several other forum members) seen the same phenomenon.

-Cole

Beartooth Mountains, MT ~9,000' above mean sea level