Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok, as many of you know my female had finally settled into laying some eggs for me. i only ever found the one egg, i was thinking as i opened her up i would find a second, but looking through i couldnt find any evidence of another. im thinking theres a possibility she buried one of the eggs a little. its tough because this happened thanksgiving day when i was out of town, so i couldnt really see what was going on. i know she was setting into her shed right while i was leaving, and everything seemed fine. then my roommate who was taking care of them called me and gave me the bad news. seems as though she took a good bit of peat moss into her mouth, which is very ironic, because i just said i've never had a problem with eating substrate in any of my uros. anyhow, i figured i would post the pics so maybe someone can point anything out to me. its really sad because she was in seemingly perfect health and had been ever since i got her in may. im probably going to go back and remove some of the bigger organs obstructing the view of her insides to take another picture. this is my first time dissecting a phantasticus so i was hoping bsmith or someone could be so kind as to help me out a lil bit by looking over this. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

heres the body cavity picture. anyone know what the two large white lobes in the pelvic region are? is that the bladder? is the large brown mass up top the liver?

How long before you did the necrospy from the time she died? and how did you store her during this time?...

I am 100% sure the substrate in the mouth is not the cause of death but likely a result of whatever it was that struck her... ie. convulsions or seizures, weakness and falling from a branch to the ground or not being able to hold her head up...
its not uncommon for uroplatus to be found dead with a little substrate in their mouths... its not a suspect in death unless theres something lodged in the throat or clogging the alimentary tract...

in general, its hard to tell much of anything from pictures... unless its something obvious... most diagnostic work is from samples taken from the animal... do you have any other pictures?
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Ben

i agree. i once read a similar story on the chameleon forum..
" my male jackson's chameleon died from it's tongue getting stuck to a branch"
the response..
i highly doubt the chameleon got it's tongue stuck to a branch, if they missed in the wild and died everytime their tongue stuck to a branch they'd all be dead and hanging from their tongues. it is more likely it died, then the tongue fell out of the mouth and stuck to the branch.

anyways, the point being there was probably another cause for the death of your phantasticus. i had the same issue with one of my females a few months ago. was eating fine, drinking wonderfully, then one day she was dead. it really ticked me off.

yea, i guess i can understand now that its not necessarily what caused her death, but its the only thing i could guess from what i could see. i dont have any clearer pics of the dissection. my friend had only put her in a plastic bag. she had been dead for about 2 days before i dissected her. it was a tough situation made tougher by the fact i was out of town. anyway, im preserving her to get a better look at her insides once im not so sick. i came down with some sort of sickness (maybe flu or something) on thanksgiving day when i found out about her, so ill get a better look at her insides and possibly get more closure to it then.

did she put her in the bag and then in the fridge?

there are a couple reasons why i ask...
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Ben

nope. he put her in the bag and then left it on my desk.

Whoa!... This is problem number one... Refridgeration slows bacterial and coccidian population growth... Therefore, even if you had tested tissue/mucousa samples they likely would not have been accurate... The time spent at room temperature could also explain the clouding of the liver tissue... To draw real conclusions, one would have to investigate the entire organ system... An enlarged liver, or cloudy liver could mean many things, but it doesnt mean anything if you are looking at a picture with only the liver showing... Freezing is bad as well, it will degenerate the tissues upon thawing...
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Ben

figured i wouldnt get much out of this case, with all the circumstances working against me. i was out of town while it happened, sick when i got back, body was left out for about 24 hours or more... for some reason i had something in the back of my head telling me to bring the one tank with my satanics in it, but i decided against it because i really didnt want to disturb the female since she had begun laying her eggs. looks like this is just another loss ill never be able to explain.

Yeah, its just so tough to figure them out, even with the desceased animal laying in front of you... Sorry I couldn't be of more help... If you do get more pics, please post them anyway!
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Ben

In a few cases I have had older female geckos (not Uroplatus) die after or while trying to lay. I know it is impossible to know a wild caught gecko's age, but did it seem to be older (less muscle tone, dulled coloration, etc.)? How many eggs did you get from this clutch? Was she a large or small for a female? All of these could be clues...
Ashton

from all i could tell she seemed to be in her prime. she was beautifully plump for a while before laying. one thing that seemed odd was that it took her a long time to lay the single egg that i had found. she spent like 2 weeks with a very fat belly, then began moving about the floor of the enclosure for 2 or 3 days before she laid any eggs. so if was able to guess, i would say she didnt die of age. showed no signs of fatigue or deterioration.

this was the one