5 month old panther chameleon crashed and died in a 24 hour period-looking for potential culprits

[Mr.Pickles]

Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - 5 month old male ambilobe panther. Brought him home on Sunday August 6th and named him Mr. Pickles.
• Handling - only to get him into his new home so far
• Feeding - He hasnt eaten yet :-( tried Crickets (3/4"), small/medium Dubias, waxworms and hornworms so far.
• Supplements - calcium w/o d3 daily. Cal w/d3 twice a month and multivit twice a month.
• Watering - mist king misting system. Mists 3 times daily. 5 minutes first two mistings, 4minutes last misting. One mist nozzle and one rainfall fixture. Hedrank for a few minutes straight immediately after we put him in his new home
• Fecal Description - gelatinous with orange tinged urate--was dehydrated at the shop we got him from. Poop was well formed with white urate after having him with us for 4 days
• History - was housed with his brother at the reptile store we got him at. They sprayed the fake plant in their cage twice a day. Urates in this cage had orange tinge

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - dragon strand screen 24x24x48
• Lighting reptisun 5.0 and 100w powersun uv basking bulb. On from 630 to 8
• Temperature - highest basking temp of 85-86. Ambient low 70s. Measured with a thermometer/hydrometer combo
• Humidity - 50-70% higher when misting
• Plants - live large pothos plant. Sterilized grape vines and bamboofor climbing. Two fake plants
• Placement - cage is in living room (We started a little exotic wing, alsohave a bearded dragon and a green conure). Top of cage is about 7 feetoff the ground
• Location - Southeast Wisconsin

Our cham-Mr. Pickles was doing very well but he passed away last night very unexpectedly. He was eating well-dusted and gutloaded crickets and dubias with the occasional hornworm and waxworm. Pooped once a day and was active in his cage every day. Two days ago I noticed his routine was off (wasnt waiting for me on his basking branch in the morning) and he was irritable, puffing up and hissing. This was totally out of character for him as he would usually crawl over my hands to get to his food dish/container when i put it in every morning. He looked normal and I saw him drinking at his 1pm misting but he didnt eat anything. Yesterday morning I found him weak, eyes sunken in and pale to white in color. He didnt respond to any treatment (fluids and heat) and took his last breath around 10pm last night. Nothing changed with his enclosure, water or prey items. We use reverse osmosis filtered water. If anybody has any idea what could have happened I'd appreciate the insight. We only handled him once the month we had him and that was 2 weeks ago for 5 minutes tops.

 

[Mr.Pickles]

I should add that we sent him off for a necropsy today but wont get any results for at least a week with the holiday. The shop we got him from will give us a discount on a replacement but I want to know what happened before starting over so this doesnt happen again :-(

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Chameleons hide their illness! Your chameleon did not crash and die in 24 hours! It probably took days or maby even weeks to slowly deteriorate to the point where it could not hide it's illness anymore!

 

[jamest0o0]

Other than a few smaller things you could change, I see nothing that would quickly kill a chameleon. It was probably from the shop you got him at, I wouldn't go back personally.

 

[Mr.Pickles]

Thank you for the quick responses. I put that he crashed because he was eating, pooping, drinking and acting completely fine/normal up until 2 days ago.

 

[kinyonga]

You said..." He hasnt eaten yet" then you said "He was eating well-dusted and gutloaded crickets and dubias with the occasional hornworm and waxworm" ...which was it??

You said you have a beardie and a conure...could he see either?

 

[Mr.Pickles]

He didnt eat the first three days we had him home, due to the stress of moving i was told. He started eating immediately after my initial thread post. He could see the beardie if he was in the exact right spot in his cage, i put up a little wall of silk plants to block his view as much as possible.

 

[Mr.Pickles]

And conure was out of view

 

[kinyonga]

Somsorry for your loss...I thought maybe it could see the conure or dragon and that scared him to death.

 

[Carlton]

We tend to forget that sometimes bad things just happen. I'm glad you are getting a necropsy done! So many people don't and are left to speculate forever. Something traumatic could have happened that didn't give much warning. Or, something subtle was going on before you bought him as others have suggested. Either way, hopefully you will learn more soon. Sorry you lost him!

 

[jajeanpierre]

I should add that we sent him off for a necropsy today but wont get any results for at least a week with the holiday. The shop we got him from will give us a discount on a replacement but I want to know what happened before starting over so this doesnt happen again :-(

Two days ago I noticed his routine was off (wasnt waiting for me on his basking branch in the morning) and he was irritable, puffing up and hissing.

The puffing and hissing got my attention. That was the one thing I noticed with my affected animals.

Read this: https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/aflatoxicosis.158656/

Ask your vet to look for evidence of a toxin. My necropsies were very different and similar at the same time with no obvious reason. One research vet said my necropsies showed obvious slow intoxication. I've had a lot of vets and pathologists working on this. It was a very difficult diagnosis to make and I had 10 full necropsies and I have a few still sitting on my shelf in Formalin.

I would love to read your necropsy results.

I'm very sorry. I went through something very similar and I lost a lot of animals. I feel sick all over again just reading those few lines you wrote about him puffing and hissing. Again, I'm very sorry.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Chameleons hide their illness! Your chameleon did not crash and die in 24 hours! It probably took days or maby even weeks to slowly deteriorate to the point where it could not hide it's illness anymore!

I have to disagree with you on this. Yes they can crash and die that fast if they are poisoned. Food that is heavily contaminated with aflatoxins can kill in minutes.

The description of his chameleon inappropriately hissing and puffing was what I experienced with many of my collection that succumbed to a toxin. One research vet is 100% sure it was aflatoxins from the feeders. I'm still waiting for the final reports and then will sit down with the head vet at the zoo who also happens to be a reptile vet and chameleon breeder and we'll go over everything together.

Read this: https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/aflatoxicosis.158656/

 

[jajeanpierre]

Other than a few smaller things you could change, I see nothing that would quickly kill a chameleon. It was probably from the shop you got him at, I wouldn't go back personally.

I suspect the feeders.
Read this: https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/aflatoxicosis.158656/

 

[jamest0o0]

@jajeanpierre Was looking at that awhile back when it happened. Crickets eating moldy grains is the main source for these? What would you describe as innapropriate hissing/puffing? Just curious

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

I have to disagree with you on this. Yes they can crash and die that fast if they are poisoned. Food that is heavily contaminated with aflatoxins can kill in minutes.

The description of his chameleon inappropriately hissing and puffing was what I experienced with many of my collection that succumbed to a toxin. One research vet is 100% sure it was aflatoxins from the feeders. I'm still waiting for the final reports and then will sit down with the head vet at the zoo who also happens to be a reptile vet and chameleon breeder and we'll go over everything together.

Read this: https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/aflatoxicosis.158656/

Yes, poison can do that! I agree, but you have to admit, this poisoning cennario is probably not very common place!?

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

I know a excelent chameleon keeper who is very inteligent and keeps notes on everything about her chameleon care. She later looks back at her notes and try to find the things that potentially caused her chameleons problems once any present themselves. She recently discovered a link between a certain vitamin (multivitamin) brand and her one chameleon having upper respiratory tract infection like symptoms! She completely cut this substitute out of her chameleons diet and the problem dissapeared completely! (She of course is making sure her chameleon is getting the correct vitamins another way). Who knows why her chameleon has this reaction to this product (it could be a multitude of causes such as a allergy to something in the product, a contaminated batch etc, etc, etc...)!? The point remains that she figured it out!

 

[kinyonga]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin
"The staple commodities regularly contaminated with aflatoxins include cassava, chillies, corn, cotton seed, millet, peanuts, rice, sorghum, sunflower seeds, tree nuts, wheat, and a variety of spices intended for human or animal consumption. Aflatoxin transformation products are sometimes found in eggs, milk products, and meat when animals are fed contaminated grains"

http://poisonousplants.ansci.cornell.edu/toxicagents/aflatoxin/aflatoxin.html
"Aflatoxins are toxic metabolites produced by certain fungi in/on foods and feeds."
"Clinical signs of aflatoxicosis in animals include gastrointestinal dysfunction, reduced reproductivity, reduced feed utilization and efficiency, anemia, and jaundice.".
Questions...is this the way it would present in chameleons? How common can it be?
Are they found in fresh vegetables and greens and fruits?

 

[jajeanpierre]

@jajeanpierre Was looking at that awhile back when it happened. Crickets eating moldy grains is the main source for these? What would you describe as innapropriate hissing/puffing? Just curious

I had a lot of animals affected at once so saw patterns that a keeper (or vet) with a single affected animal wouldn't see.

I found they exhibited defensive behaviors (gaping, flaring, etc.) inappropriately. If I looked in a malthe cage, they gaped and threw open their "ears" at me. I have had malthe for quite some time and rarely saw them flare out their ears. Ditto with the baby quads. Lots of gaping and rolling around for no apparent reason.

I wasn't sure if I was seeing a response to extreme pain or a convulsion/seizure. One necropsy showed some brain degeneration.

I had a lot of full necropsies done, maybe 10. The exotic pathologist the zoo uses sent the slides to another exotic pathologist across the country. There have been a lot of really serious research vets working with me, looking things over.

I don't know where the source of the aflatoxin came from. Aspergillus (the mold that produces the toxin) is a common environmental mold. It's everywhere. Grain kept improperly easily becomes contaminated. That contamination could happen anywhere along the path from field to cricket feed--mold can contaminate grain in the field before harvest, during storage, after milling at the feed mill, during storage at the cricket farm, in the cricket bins, in the cricket bedding, in my own cricket bins or even in my cages from hungry crickets eating soggy rotting vegetation in my plant pots in my cages full of new imports. I don't know.

A research vet who was a visiting research fellow at London Zoological Society told me grain-fed feeders were "the worst." He's seen it before. He's adamant that it was my crickets. He said they can become covered in aflatoxins just from contaminated bedding.

And I think it is a lot more common than anyone realizes which is why I was encouraged to share with the chameleon community. Dealing with it broke my heart.

 

[jajeanpierre]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin
"The staple commodities regularly contaminated with aflatoxins include cassava, chillies, corn, cotton seed, millet, peanuts, rice, sorghum, sunflower seeds, tree nuts, wheat, and a variety of spices intended for human or animal consumption. Aflatoxin transformation products are sometimes found in eggs, milk products, and meat when animals are fed contaminated grains"

http://poisonousplants.ansci.cornell.edu/toxicagents/aflatoxin/aflatoxin.html
"Aflatoxins are toxic metabolites produced by certain fungi in/on foods and feeds."
"Clinical signs of aflatoxicosis in animals include gastrointestinal dysfunction, reduced reproductivity, reduced feed utilization and efficiency, anemia, and jaundice.".
Questions...is this the way it would present in chameleons? How common can it be?
Are they found in fresh vegetables and greens and fruits?

@kinyonga There is a lot more symptoms in the literature than your list.

I've spoken to the pathologist many times over this--he's the pathologist the zoo uses--and he was quite honest in saying that no one knows what aflatoxicosis looks like in reptiles. They just don't know. They know what it looks like in turkeys, chickens, cattle, etc., because those animals are part of the agricultural industry, so a huge impact on the economy and a lot of research dollars directed that way. They know what it looks like in humans. They don't know what it looks like in reptiles let alone chameleons.

My long-term captive adults were unaffected. It was the gravid animals, the young animals, the new imports that took the hit.

I can tell you their immune system seemed affected as well as many many different organs. No two animals' necropsies looked exactly the same. I'll know more when my last results come back and I sit down with the head vet at the zoo. It's been very expensive and I delayed having some necropsies done, leaving them sitting in jars perfectly prepared for the pathologist....

It's been a heartbreaking experience.

 

[Tortdad]

That poor thing looked sickly from the get go