As this is my 100th post here (after only a little over 2 years
) I would like to give you an update of my favorite snakes, my tiger ratsnakes Spilotes pullatus and what happened during the last year. Maybe grab yourself something to drink, this might get a little longer…
You may find the original post and the basic information about my enclosure and my snakes here
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http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/gener...-pullatus.html
As I wrote in my original thread my 2,1 Spilotes were doing great, there was no aggression between them and so I kept them together year-round. When I put them together in December 2012 it was on short notice to initiate a breeding response, so I wanted to initiate the mating season in December 2013.
Over a period of about 3 weeks I started by reducing the lighting (and by extension the heating as the three lamps are my only active heating source) by first switching off the UVB-emitting bulb and then the second HCI bulb, so the only light source was the lamp at the middle of the enclosure. At the same time I started to spray water not only at the morning but also in the evening, effectively increasing the humidity to near 100%, it was not dropping any longer but stayed that high 24/7.
The temperature didn’t drop dramatically, as this enclosure is in my living room and in winter my (room) heater is keeping the ambient temperature at ca. 23 degrees C (73 F) and in the enclosure directly under the remaining spot the temperature is about 30 degrees C (86 F).
In January the behavior of my snakes changed dramatically. Between the two males it was similar to the behavior I described in my earlier thread. My first male was staying in the upper region of my enclosure, the same as my female. The second male was staying at or near the ground. As soon as it was showing itself the first male was watching it, flickering its tongue. If the second male was trying to climb to an upper resting place or branch the first male was immediately moving, crawling over the second male, pushing him sideways with a coil of his body or squeezing him against a branch. This led sometimes to biting the second male (sometimes repeatedly) into the lower third of its body, preferable into the tail. Those bites were obviously painful, but they did not hurt the second male, there was no bleeding or even a scratch. The second male never tried to fight back, as soon as it was attacked it tried to go away and got down to the floor again.
The first male watching the movements of the second male
I was seriously considering to separate the two males, but decided against it in the end, because the second male did not seem to be to stressed and the presence of a second male can be very stimulating for the “dominant” male.
The female was never molested at all. I didn’t see any mating, but I found sperm several times. So I was cautious optimistic that the female might be gravid.
Female (left head) and my first male (right head)
My first Male and the female (head at the background right)
At the end of February I reversed the climatic changes, switching the second HCI lamp and the UVB lamp back on and reduced the spraying to once a day, so the raining season was over and the conditions were back to normal in the beginning of March.
The behavior of the males returned back to normal, no more pushing, shoving or biting, instead they were sharing their favorite resting places once again. The female was resting at her favorite resting place in the right hand corner below the second HCI lamp.
So the waiting continued if there were any eggs growing or not.
About two weeks later at a Monday evening I was just doing something at my PC when I heard some strange noises coming from my Spilotes enclosure. My first thought was that the males were fighting, but it was the female. She was at the ground (which in itself was highly unusual for her), she was coiled all over herself and her head and neck was bent backwards (if you ever saw a snake stargazing it looked very similar to it). You can imagine my first thought – Oh sh.T!!
I grabbed her, put her in a tub I use to feed them separately and gave her some water. This seemed to help, the thrashing of her body stopped and she was holding her head normal again. All of this reminded me of some kind of (epileptic) seizure. I kept her in the tub. She showed the same kind of seizure several times again over the next days, but never as strong as this first one.
From the look of it my worst fear was that it might be an infection with paramyxoviruses, not knowing where they should have come from as I had no new reptiles for more than 6 month at this time.
So the next morning I made an appointment with a vet I know to treat reptiles, in fact I had been there some years ago with one of my Gonyosomas. To my disappointment there was only a young vet, not the senior and owner of the practice. She observed the snake, which was behaving normally, but she did not take any samples. She said she would have to ask her laboratory what kind of samples they were able to analyze, but it was to late to get them, so she would give me a call in the morning. Anyway, she thought it might be some hormonal dysfunction, maybe related to the climatic changes and the possible gravity. You can imagine that I wasn’t amused at all.
The next morning she called and told me the “good news” that paramyxo was only dangerous for pythons but not for Colubrids. I should get her some stool samples to be on the save side. Disappointed I went to my friend (the same one who build my enclosure). He didn’t think it to be paramyxo viruses, because the incubation period would have been much shorter and the other snakes would have been affected as well, but he thought it might be something serious. He had the address of a new vet in our area, so I made another appointment for the next day.
Sadly, the female died during the night. So from first symptoms (Monday evening) to death it was only a little over 48 hours. I took the snake to the new vet anyway and she made a section at the same evening. She told me that she found some strange looking structures in the kidneys and she took samples from the kidneys, the liver and pancreas as well as a blood sample and sent it to her laboratory.
I got the results a few days later. My snake died because of a lymphoma, a lymphoid cancer (in German it is called a “Lymphom” or “lymphatische Leukose”, I am not sure if my translation is completely accurate). This cancer had caused serious damage to all examined internal organs to a degree that they were not functioning any longer. This caused a slow poisoning and resulted in the neurological deficits my snake showed in the end. So even if the first vet would have known what it was it would have been too late to rescue my snake.
The examination did not show any (known) virus infection.
The problem is that this kind of cancer is known to be spread by viruses in birds and cats. For reptiles there are no known data, neither if it might be spread by viruses or not. So there was a certain uncertainty if my other snakes might be affected.
So I was watching my two males a little closer as normal during the next weeks. The first male did not show any signs of abnormal behavior, but the second male…
I am the first to admit (even at that time) that I most probably was seeing pink elephants and was probably overreacting.
The second male seemed to move a bit sluggish, it is kind of hard to describe but he seemed to move not in one fluent movement, but more in discontinued, interrupted movements. I saw him once moving not on his belly but on his side (right at the passage from belly to the back). So I took him and went to my vet. She was really understanding, she did not think it very likely that he was also having the same sort of cancer, but to be sure she asked the senior scientist at her laboratory. As an immediate treatment she gave the him an infusion of vitamin B12, because lack of this vitamin could cause some neurological deficiencies as I (might) have seen. After this infusion I didn’t see any odd movements from him any longer.
As a result of her consultation with her laboratory she suggested a liver biopsy, so you might be able to see if there was any damage to the liver or any signs of cancer. The laboratory had agreed to perform the examination “out of scientific interest” for free, so I had only to pay for the biopsy itself. I did think about this proposal for a few days, because a biopsy meant an anesthesia and a small surgical intervention for my snake. In the end I decided to do it (and the decision would have been the same even if I had to pay for the laboratory exams). The biopsy was without any problems, my snake was already awake when I came to get him at the same evening (sometimes snakes might “sleep” much longer than the anesthesia would last because of their slower metabolism).
The result was negative, there were no signs of cancer or any damage to the liver.
As you can imagine I was really relieved.
When the small wound had healed I put him back in his enclosure and both males are doing good since then.
So now I am searching for a new female, but sadly no such look so far.
Thanks for reading and now some new pictures of my first male as eye candy
Roman
Hybrid Mode
