Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This Taipan belongs to a friend, can anyone tell us what might cause these bumps and what to do about them?
Im not sure if they are hard or soft.
The snake eats fine and a sibling is showing the same bumps but less severe.
Many thanks

The pic can be viewed at ...

http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action=showMyPhoto&albumID=31930131&photoID=91338740&security=wdZefp

The pic appears to be in a private album.
The problem with bumps is that treating them is usually pretty much guess work unless you can take them out and see what they are. At least that's what my vet says.

I cant believe i did this again, here is the link ... http://community.webshots.com/photo/31930131/91338740wdZefp
Link

Those could be a lot of things. My sand boa has something that look similar and since she's too small to extract them the vet still isn't 0 what they are. Not knowing if they're hard or soft opens up the possibilites even more.

The photo is not real clear, and it is difficult to see the lumps..how many, how big, etc. But it does look like it is a series of small lumps, mostly lateral.

As Meretseger pointed out, there are many possible causes, including but not limited to:

1. A bacterial invasion from a rat or mouse bite or from a tick bite leading to Granulomata. Possible pathogens are Pseudomonas, Escherichia coli, Proteus, Providencia, Serratia and Salmonella, or a combination of more than one of these. These are sometimes indicative of a systemic involvement, or can become systemic if not treated, leading to a possibly fatal sepsis.

2. Trichonomads, such as Macdonaldius, Oswaldofilaria, and Foleyella

3. Spiruroid nematodes such as Dracunculus. (not common)

4. Pentastomes, such as the Armillifer, Kiricephalus and Porocephalus. (possible zoonose)

5. Reactions to mite bites.

You will probably have to have one or more of the lumps excised and investigated to find out the cause and formulate a treatment plan.

Is granulomata the plural of granuloma, or was my vet just saying it wrong? I'm pretty sure that's what my sand boa has now, because the fortaz the vet gave us appears to be helping her greatly.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

The condition is known as granulomatosis (multiple granuloma), the individual bumps are granuloma, the lot of them are granulomata.