Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Sometimes a baby in the egg is it's own worst enemy. Sometimes there is nothing a keeper can do to insure perfect results with their efforts. This one apparently kept wrapping itself in the cord connecting it to it's umbilical sac. I'm left to wonder if this was the result of an active developing embryo or something else.

Wow! I've had a couple of messed up stillborns over the years, some that apparently had strangulated themselves with their umbilical or ones that have eviscerated themselves by coming out of the egg with the umbilical attached, pulling their organs out; but I have never seen anything as bizarre as your incident!

It's so weird that it's in two pieces and yet both ends look like they had tried to heal by closing up. It must've been a slow constrictive type of amputation that caused this to happen this way.

Sad but fascinating. Thanks for sharing!
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

I've seen a few crazy things myself over the years but a snake embryo this far along completely severed in half? The photo is a bit misleading. There is no second embryo in the sack. What looks like an eye is a bit of vermiculite.

At first I thought I had some dead twins. My mind just wouldn't accept what I was seeing.

ok..? NO way the cord cut it in half...it would have ripped in half (the cord) or pulled loose from the belly connection....
if you look at the pic you posted...it looks like the cord goes from yolk sac to belly with no twists or turns...they are not that long...

I think you have an embryo...that tried to be twins?...split at the wrong time?....and one was front end one back end that developed???...

sounds impossible....

I have had many screwed up embryos....Siamese, 2 head, no upper jaw with or without eyes...no bottom jaws...no head ,yet still alive with a herniated septum and heart in full view still beating....external heart....bodies fused to themselves...

this is the weirdest one of all....

.....I still think 2 in the making....
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........JY

ok...check for a second cord...if the end with a head was developed from early embryonic splitting...it would have needed a cord also....check for a connection spot on it also....(belly button on one with head)...

........and does the cord actually wrap around the one with tail?.....looks like not...but as you see it looks like a compressed portion with no scale development...?
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........JY

Your right, sometimes stuff happens.

In this case, its more possible the eggs was moved exactly at the wrong time.(or it moved on its own) Normally, the sac and zygote are in a position that's safe. Or we would see this all the time.

It must have occurred very early in development. Normally after there is some size to the embryo, the snake is strong enough to not have a problem. This one did have a problem.

I do agree with others, better pics are in order, ones on paper towels, so we can see the whole thing.

In this case, it may have been the cord that caused the problem. But in the thousands upon thousands of colubrids I have hatched, I cannot say, I can contribute the cord to any of malfunctions in development, and there were some.

In the eggs I studied, the embryo does not crawl or move. It can twitch. Movement is only late in development. So getting tangled up on its own accord is not likely.

Normally when these type eggs are laid, the embryo migrates to the highest part of the eggs. I would think it was here the damage occurred.

IT could also have occurred if the eggs were held to long. Normally the embryo is in the middle of the egg until its deposited, I imagine its that way so it can safely pass out of the female.

Also, please, the problem with many of the folks on this site is, its either A or Z. When in fact, In all reality, its rarely A or Z. best wishes

Weird...but thanks for sharing.

I had a slightly deformed neonate this year, but you couldn't even tell it was deformed until it started to crawl.

Oh well, not much you can do...

to honor any picture requests. That is now the property of Federated Waste. I don't know what caused it. I thought twins first also and looked in the sack or for any other sign of twins but there weren't any. If you look at those pics, you can see where there is another ring around the tail portion that is also constricted looking. It went all the way around it in a circle. Like everyone else, I have no idea what happened but it was the craziest thing I've seen from a reptile egg.