Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It's been nearly a month after Leon passed away, but his mate, Greeney, is having real problems these days!!! It's very odd! Only about 2-3 days ago, she was mostly bright green in color, always active, alert, and healthy, but right after the day ended, she always looked brown and stressed for 2 days, but today, she looks really ill!! She's green in color, but not a pleasant-looking appearance, since she has black patches behind her eyes (this is usually a bad sign for green anoles), her green coloration is specked with brown, her eyes are sunken as though she's dehydrated, and the checkered stripe along her back is brown, instead of being white as usual. She looks really crippled. She wasn't like this yesterday!! I don't know what's wrong with her! The cage is just right with the temperature, there's a UV, bed-a-beast substrate, branches, plastic plants, philodendron, and the humidity is fine. Since I mist the cage daily, there's no way she should be dehydrated!! And she hasn't been eating for nearly 2 weeks. Occasionally, I notice her opening her mouth wide and shaking it violently and rapidly, splattering the branches with her saliva. I never seen anoles doing this before!! Anyone else had this experience with them? What the heck is going on with her? Please help, since I can't afford to lose another anole just a month after I lost the recent one.

Tim
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Extinction is forever. Endangered means we still have time.

Protect the global wildlife.

First let me say this... I am not a VET, but you do need the opinion of one.

The shaking the head and spraying lizard spit isn't what you think it is. She's throwing up. If her eyes are sunken she's dehydrated (sounds like she IS trying to get some water down but it's coming right back up). Without water she won't be able to digest food.

Two things come to mind but like I said, I'm not a vet. First is that there is an impaction in her gut caused by god knows what.

Second, IS it possible that she could have gotten ahold of a cricket or some other food item exposed to pesticides? If the food given to the crickets has been sprayed,it may not kill the cricket YET but it would be in it's system.

Just food for thought. You need to get her to a vet to to a fecal sample and rule out internal parasites/worms etc too.
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles
2.2.0 green tree frogs
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake "Popcorn"
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)Due to arrive very soon
2.4 Domestic house cats
1.0 Rottweiler
1.0 Husband (who loves all my critters too)

If she's dehydrated, I don't know why, because it's almost impossible to get dehydration when the cage is misted and sprayed daily! She was like this yesterday, but before, her eyes were fine. All the food I fed to her include gut-loaded crix, mealies, and occasionally moths. By the way, I did fed her a few houseflies few months ago. Some breeders say that houseflies are ok, since these are their main prey in wild. Maybe these are causing problems? And also, the thing that she threw up is a sticky and milky liquid, but I didn't see anything strange in it, no parasites, no food remains, nothing at all. I don't think I can take her to vet, since my parents aren't allowing me to spend at least $40 just to cure a small lizard. Is there anything else I can do?

Tim
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Extinction is forever. Endangered means we still have time.

Protect the global wildlife.

Take her and put her in a bowl of warm water. Obviously, keep her head above so she can breath, but soak her body in it for fifteen minutes or so a couple of times a day. If she's impacted, it might help her pass it through. She could be impacted from eating too many crickets at once. She could have parasites from either the crickets or houseflies. It could be many things, and it's probably worth it to take her to a vet. I mean, I understand it's a lot of money, but knowing what it is could help all your other pets. Without a vet you *could* lose your pet and never know why, exactly. Either way, good luck.
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Got hips like Cinderella / Must be having a good shame / Talking sweet about nothing / Cookie I think you're Tame

Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do for her. I found Greeney dead on the substrate floor just after I arrived back from school. She had her mouth open slightly, but she didn't died of old age, it's definitely obvious that she passed away with some sort of deadly sickness.

The oddest part about her death is that Only 5 days ago, she was healthy, with bright eyes, healthy, and active. Then, as 3 days passed, she began to look a bit stressed, but I decided that it wasn't a big deal, since she turned green and light brown occasionally, but RIGHT after that normal ended, BAM!!! she looked intensely ill, with her eyes sunken as though she was dehydrated, started to vomit all over the place, acted as though she was being tortured, etc. She didn't look like this a day before! I tried to find a problem with her by looking closely at her skin, but nothing unusual! Her skin was even, smooth, not folded, torn or anything. I didn't notice any parasite-like organisms, all I could say was that she had green coloration with black patches behind her eyes (the color that green anoles always bore whenever they're about to die), and the checkered stripe along her back, instead of being white, turned brown when the illness striked her like a thunderbolt.

What kind of disease or sickness was this?! Whatever it was, it's very dangerous to lizards and maybe other reptiles, since it striking them unexpectedly, and killing them just after a couple days later!! I'm really sad that Greeney's gone, but her couple hatchlings are still thriving. I'm seriously hoping that this deadly sickness won't go after the hatchlings.

Again, I'd like to thank all who replied to my post. I wish I could've done quicker actions if I had more time, but I guess I wasn't nimble enough. Thank you again, and whenever a sudden sickness strikes your anole like a lightening, act ASAP or else it'll kill them a few days later, just like it killed Greeney.

Tim
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Extinction is forever. Endangered means we still have time.

Protect the global wildlife.

np
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Extinction is forever. Endangered means we still have time.

Protect the global wildlife.

Just because she has water available and is drinking it doens't mean she can't be dehydrated. If a human is sick and has diarhera and is vomiting that person is losing valuable fluid. Same goes with anoles. If she's throwing up all the water she's drinking, she's not getting any fluid into her body. Which brings to mind a few more symptoms you may want to look into.
You already said her eyes are sunken. Is her skin look real loose with folds in it? DOES she have diarhera? Are you using declorinated water to spray her cage with? A few flies a couple of months ago I don't think would do this.

If you can't afford to take her to the vet you are limiting yourself on what you can do to save her. Can you get a hold of some unflavored Pedialyte (sp?). It's used for babies who are sick and dehydrated. I know that soaking snakes in it can help them a lot, it's possible to help her with it too. You can either try misting the cage with it OR if she is tame enough to hand feed them load some up in a small syringe (NO NEEDLE) and let her lap up small drops off the end. Give her just a little at a time and watch to see if she throws it up again. She'll either start to get better or she'll just get worse. But I'm afraid since you can't take her to a vet for an x-ray to see if she has a compaction, she'll end up dying from it regardless of what you try to do to save her.

Green anoles are NOT easy lizards to care for (nor should they EVER be considered a beginers lizard), I've had two die on me in quarentine before they were added to my collection because of internal parasites and stress. I refuse to add any more green anoles to my collection because of this. If I lose the other 6 (hopefully of old age and not illness) then I plan on sticking to frogs and snakes. They are much hardier species.

Good luck.
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles
2.2.0 green tree frogs
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake "Popcorn"
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)Due to arrive very soon
2.4 Domestic house cats
1.0 Rottweiler
1.0 Husband (who loves all my critters too)