Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The other day while cleaning a water dish in the cage of a long term captive W.C. Unicolor I found a large wormlike creature, checking several books on the subject I identified it as a Pentastome (exact size & shape as the picture of one from D. c, couperi in Rundquist & Frye) This snake had had two fecals etc for parasites. The adult animal lives in the lung or mouth & the eggs are shed in saliva & the feces, the adults sometimes emerge through the mouth as mine did. Frye suggests Ivermectin for this but others seem doubtful of drug treatment for Pentastomes. The literature cites human infestation ( I believe most the cases are from eating snake, not something most of us would do with a Drymarchon, raw goat or sheep liver or perhaps the "JU-JU rites of Africa, also a contaminated water source ). Pentastomes (I have seen it spelled several ways) are considered Arthropods, subphylum Mandibulata, class Pentastomida, or Crustacea (they are having trouble placing it). There is also a question of a direct or two host life cycles, obviously important info on transmission of the parasite to us or our other animals. The only literature I can find on it in Drymarchon is the couperi if anyone has seen these in other subspecies please post. Obviously it will not appear in captive stock (unless it has been in close contact with a wild caught animal). I have decided to keep the snake but use the protocol I use for new animals. Like to open a discussion on the subject on transmittable diseases with input from the many people out there who know a hell of a lot more about it then I do.

Several of us have been through the same little "dilemma" here. I suspect what you are actually finding in your water bowls is tongue sheds. The sheath of skin covering the tongue sheds like the external skin and will look like some sort of a worm when you find it in the water bowl. Some times you will even find the sheds from both sides of the tongue at the same time, sometimes only one side. I'll bet you haven't found more than 2 at any one time, have you?

I would make sure that I had a 100% diagnosis backed up with finding positively identified ova in a fecal flotation or direct smear before I even considered treating.

Whatever you do, be extremely careful about using Ivermectin with Drymarchon. It is known to be quite toxic in this group of snakes.

Hi, I found lots of tungue sheds in water bowls, if you've ever seen a picture of a Pentastome you would know you can't mistake it for a tongue shed.

I've seen plenty of Pentastomids. The problem is that you didn't post a picture of what you found. Pentastomid infection is rare in captive snakes. The recommended treatment is, in fact, Ivermectin if you truly have Pentastomids, but you still have to be extremely careful in Drymarchon treating with Ivermectin. If what you found (adults) looks sort caterpillar-like, then it may very well be Pentastomids. If you do a fecal float, ID will be large round/oval shaped thin-walled ova from 70-90 um in size, easily confused with Ascarid ova. The adults can be fairly large sometimes (depending on species), up to 50mm or more, especially those of the genus Armillifer, which are known to use mammals as an intermediate host. The most commonly found in South American snakes is Raillietiella furcocerca.

And, you are correct, they are not really worms, but more closely related to Arachnids.

Hi again, I did a fecal & then had it checked by a Vet, probably should have mentioned that but the post was not to get a conformation of my diagnosis but to make people aware of the possibility of coming across this in imported animals, also I thought a discussion on diseases that we can get from our reptiles might be interesting.

Yep..there is a possiblilty of zoonose from this one.