Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, thanks for looking at my thread, hope you can help!

About 2 months ago I bought a healthy little jungle leopard gecko which I called Yossarian, and I keep he(or she?) in a relatively large vivarium, which I spray with a humidifier each morning and keep at 84 degrees by day, 74 by night. I feed Yoss on little black crickets, generally between 8 and 12 per feed, and skip a feed every 3 days. I handle Yossarian gently most days, I have never grabbed or dropped the wee thing and although initially he was quite jumpy, the lizard is now fairly tame and laid back.

The week before last Yossarian somehow managed to escape (I must have left the viv open a crack) and was gone for 4 days. When we found him, he seemed fine, a little more nervous perhaps but no worse for wear… however since then he became a bit more withdrawn and sedated. At first I thought it must just be the shock of escaping and maybe he needed to acclimatise again, but on closer inspection I realised Yossarian wasn’t responding to any visual stimulation, only sound.

You can wave your hand in front of Yoss now and get no response – he can still hunt and feed just fine, but goes to sleep anywhere in the vivarium (he used to just sleep under the hides) and it’s really sad to see him stumbling about with an air of confusion. I would like to know if anyone has an idea what might have caused the poor little thing to lose it’s vision and if there is anything I can do?

Some pictures if it helps, sorry about the quality...

The viv

A little closer and you can see the size of the gecko in relatio to the viv


Poor little Yoss - it doesn't show in these photos but there does not appear to be anything wrong with his eyes

Sarah,

It's tough to say what might have happened to your gecko during its time out of the cage. It's possible that he may have been exposed to some type of toxin. However, even though he doesn't appear to be responding to visual stimuli, you say he still eats but just does not utilize his hide spots now? Does he still bask underneath a heat source? As long as he continues to eat and defecate that's a good sign, however a check up by a trained vet might not be a bad idea.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

Thank you for answeing my post!

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure he can't see, but he's still eating and pooping! Before he used to follow every little movement with his eyes (I was very conscious of this, I found it fascinating) - the most obvious thing is that before when I fed it, you could watch him watching the bug - Yossarian would freeze, but his eyes would follow it. Now he just freezes with a blank stare, not essentially in the direction of prey; I'm not sure how he hunts, if it's by smell or sound or what?

Have you heard of anything like this before then?

Cataracts could cause blindness but they would be obvious in the form of a milk appearance in the iris of one or both eyes. Also, it's unlikely that you could have an condition like that manifest literally overnight. I've known of lizards with partial blindness or total blindness due to cataracts that were still able to eat although the completely blind lizard needed assistance. Again, only a vet is going to be able to give you a proper diagnosis and course of treatment if possible. Sorry I can't be of more help.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

He seems to be perking up a bit, yesterday & today he was responding to things in front of his face! Also stopped bumping into things and crawling under the hides... lord knows what all that was about then, but it's so great to have cheeky Yoss back again!

sometimes animals will try to eat things such as lightening bugs which will either cause them to become very sick and die, or become blind. if it tried to eat something like this it may have spit it out and just gotten a little dose of the toxin which could cause temporary blindness.