Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok I have had a new mossy in one of my issolation tanks develope a split toe (by this I mean the skin was split) and the toe had swollen up to twice it's normal size (if this is from an injury I am not sure). Anyway I tried medicating the toe and noticed magots had got into the wound. The mossy has died and I was wondering if anyone has had a similiar experience or has any idea of what may have caused this or if this is some sort of flesh eating bacteria?
thanks

That corpse should go to a vet to have cultures taken. I don't have any experience with anything remotely close but I can say a few things...

1) for tissue to get that necrotic, it must have been a long term wound that went untreated.

2) you have something that could potentially infect you or other animals around you.

3) you're razzing us.

I'd prefer to go with 1 or 2 as its not a good joke. If you have not had the corpse checked out by a vet for tissue cultures and still have the corpse, I urge you to have it taken a look at. If not document it all and consult a vet to see what they can give as input. You don't want a repeat offense on that.

I would be willing to say though that it most likely was a long term wound that went untreated because necrotic tissue with maggots isn't an easy find.

jason

In the right conditions, necrotic tissue can show up in a matter of days...

This is a photo from another forum I belong to, and this snake was born 3 weeks ago, and had fed twice before the wound had been noticed. Since the last feeding was 3 days before this photo was taken, you can imagine that the wound was fairly recent. This snake also had maggots inside. It was the first thing I thought of when I heard your story...

For maggots to get into a wound, all you need is a single female eat-eating fly (green bottle flies for example), and a wound with an infection to attract her. A couple eggs and 12 hours later you have a very nasty, maggot-filled wound...

OH MAN THAT IS NASTY LOOKING! I hope I never encouter that.

I had left for about three days and told my friend to mist them and throw in a couple crickets each night. Well he called me up and told me that he noticed it's leg twitch the night before I got home. My first thought was a calcium deficiency. But I thought that was unlikely. Well when I got home it appeared that he had accidentally blacked the vent holes and I believe that over a few days the toe was injured some how, the humidity was to high with no ventilation and some fruit flies infested the wound. I just wondered if anyone else knew of this happening.

blaaaaaargh