Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The first I'm pretty sure is a nematode, and the Panacur seems to bee working, but I'd still like to know if anyone can identify the species. I can supply pics of other parts of the adult if necessary.

Here's as egg from a ratsnake:

Here's an adult from the same ratsnake:

Next is a pic of an egg from a black racer. I see lots of identical eggs but no worms. The eggs are a bit yellow/brown which didn't come through in the pic.

-----
Larry D. Fishel
Side effects may include paralysis
and death but are generally mild.

Well, the top ova is a pinworm ova. I'm not sure of the species. The worm section looks like a mouse pinworm to me (Aspiculuris tetraptera), but the egg does not look like a mouse pinworm egg. They are usually more "banana" shaped. Normally you won't find the pinworms themselves in a fecal float. Usually about the only worm you'll see in a fecal float is Strongyloides larvae.

The bottom picture is an Ascarid (roundworm) egg.

Good photos, by the way.

>>Well, the top ova is a pinworm ova. I'm not sure of the species. The worm section looks like a mouse pinworm to me (Aspiculuris tetraptera), but the egg does not look like a mouse pinworm egg. They are usually more "banana" shaped. Normally you won't find the pinworms themselves in a fecal float. Usually about the only worm you'll see in a fecal float is Strongyloides larvae.

I should have been more specific. These are from a smear. I've only seen the eggs in a float. This is also the first time I've seen the adult worms, which hopefully means the panacure is killing them (it was dead in fresh feces. I saw both egss and live larva in the smear before treating.

>>The bottom picture is an Ascarid (roundworm) egg.

Thanks.

>>Good photos, by the way.

Thanks. Just on a whim I decided to try putting my digital camera up to the microscope and see what happened. Turns out it works quite well (without a $300 adaptor...).
-----
Larry D. Fishel
Side effects may include paralysis
and death but are generally mild.

>>>>but the egg does not look like a mouse pinworm egg. They are usually more "banana" shaped.

I've looked at enough of these over the last few weeks to say with a fair amount of confidence that that is an early stage (or possibly unfertilized) egg and that the become longer as they develop but I didn't see any like that in this smear. More mature eggs are about the shape of a chicken egg stretched to two or three times its normal length (rounded at both ends but with a smaller radius at one end).
-----
Larry D. Fishel
Side effects may include paralysis
and death but are generally mild.

You are correct that this is an early stage or unfertilzed egg. It is still too round in shape, though to be a mouse pinworm. I think it is a reptile pinworm egg, I'm just not sure of the species. Mouse pinworms are really elongate and curved. Snake pinworm eggs become more like a stretched oval with one side flattened a little. If you look closely, however at the picture of the worm that you showed, you will see the esophogeal bulb that is typical of mouse pinworms. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see both in a snake. Of course, the mouse pinworms do not need to be treated because they are not pathogenic in snakes (and you'll never get rid of them anyway..every time the snake eats a mouse with pinworms you'll see them). The reptile pinworm may be problematic if there are enough of them. Panacur should definitely clear that up. I would do another exam after about 3 weeks. If it shows completely negative, do another one after another 2 or 3 weeks. Sometimes they will fool you and you'll think they are gone, but they just aren't shedding eggs when you did the exam.

Can you tell us what setup you used to take these photos.

Ben

>>Can you tell us what setup you used to take these photos.

Just a standard microscope and my Kodak DC3400 digital camera. I turned off the flash, turned on the display (so I could see when it was lined up properly, rested the lens against the eye piece and took the picture. Turn out to work great.
-----
Larry D. Fishel
Side effects may include paralysis
and death but are generally mild.

Thank you!

Ben