Where DO parasites come from?

[Christel]

I was thinking about this...
Two parasite free chameleons make babies.
Babies should be free, even those hatched from eggs, right?
Does a parasite infection come from their food? If so, then is it bad husbandry on the part of the *food* breeders?
From the air that they breath?
From their habitat?
Who knows?
Just mulling through stuffs while walking about ?

 

[jannb]

Parasites come from the feeders that they eat.

 

[Repti]

What I know is that parasite comes from wild caught insects that got it from their eniverment. I guess a breeder can have a insect that may contain parasites but it’s unlikely unless they are breeding their feeders outside.

 

[PetNcs]

What I know is that parasite comes from wild caught insects that got it from their eniverment. I guess a breeder can have a insect that may contain parasites but it’s unlikely unless they are breeding their feeders outside.

Chameleons have parasites of course

The parasites they obtain from the wild
In captivity, the parasites are drastically reduced to almost absent
Most parasites are so specific, that they can not be transferred from one species to another one (there are very rare exceptions)
A big lortion of
Larasites are heteroxenous (having more than one host) and the host is in almost alm cases so soecificC that it can not be replaced by any local host. Therefore, it can not be transferred to other animals and can not reinfect the chameleon again.
Most parasites in the captivity are passed through bad hygiene of the breeder and keeper in combining wild caught animals and offsprings in one cage (after each other without proper cleaning) and in one room or house and improper cleaning of both the facilities and hands (touching one chameleon after other without sanitizing hands).

Contrary to common rumors, parotted for decades,
The probability of chameleons being infected by parasites from the environment on other continents is almost zero and they also do NOT get THEIR parasites through feeders.

a big portion of diagnosed and treated (VETs need to justify their high bills somehow) are pseudoparasites, it means parasites of other animals (eg of the feeders) than Chameleons. As they are diagnosed, they are treated despite the fact it is a nonsense (crickets have oxyurids and they have also eggs and are expelled by the cricket, so in the fecal samole, there are oxyurid eggs if the ocyurid oarasiting on crickets, not on the chameleon.

Last but not least,
Parasites are symbiotic organisms
That as a rule have no interest on chameleon’s death, on contrary, rhey thrive the more the mire the chameleon is healthy and strong.

their oathogenicity w xoknentially increases whe. The animals become weak.

the most important factor making our chamelekns weak is improper husbandry,
Not reflecting their natural needs and ignorance, all lead to the destriction of homeostasis and open the door for diseases.

the best way How to deal
With the parasites is give absolutely perfect husbandry, then parasites are of a very low concern if at all.

 

[jannb]

Petr, this is how my vets explained it to me. The cricket farms are mostly here in the warm weather where we have tons of wild anoles and geckos. If the wild lizard gets hungry and gets in with the feeders at the cricket farm to eat a few and poops in the cricket containers, that crickets eat everything including the poop and most of the wild lizards have parasites. So if one of my chameleons eats the cricket that ate the Anole poop that he can get parasites. I’ve had coccidia several time and my vet says from this. He also said coccidia is highly contagious. Also, once Olimpia did a fecal, so to speak, of a cricket and the cricket had parasites.

 

[JacksJill]

Two parasite free chameleons make babies.
Babies should be free, even those hatched from eggs, right?

If the parasite free babies are put into a cage that is contaminated with parasite eggs or coccidia oocysts and the babies drink water drops off off the infected cage they can get parasites. If a cricket gets loose from an infected cage where it has eaten or run thru infected poop and it ends up in the babies cage the babies can get parasites.

Olimpia did a fecal, so to speak, of a cricket and the cricket had parasites.

Most likely what she saw was a parasite that infected the cricket and could only infect other crickets. Even insects have their own particular parasites. If eaten by a reptile it's life cycle would either end or it would just be passed to be possibly picked up by another cricket with no effect on the reptile.

 

[kinyonga]

I had a female chameleon ( I think it was an oustalet's...it's been a long time and I don't want to look it up) a long white parasite
came out of her one day and I took it to the vet to find out what it was. The person who was studying parasites at the facility was shown it and called me and asked if I would allow it to keep the parasites and try to get me a male so he could identify the exact species. He said they wouldn't hurt her but I might want to feed her more and make sure her husbandry was good. I did let her keep them but never got a male parasite out of her. When she died I let the parisitologist know and he wanted the body. In the necropsy process he got his male. Never saw anyone so excited over a parasite before that...or since, for that matter. BTW...she lived a good long life.

 

[cyberlocc]

This is very intresting stuff.

Somethings I have wondered, is if the parasites can pass in the eggs. So we see alot of CH animals, are those babies going to be infected by parasites if the mother was?

@PetNcs Also, your "transfer across species", can you elaborate? Do you mean a Gecko to a Chameleon? Or a Jacksons to a Yemen, or is it just a matter of host/species area? So a Jacksons cant affect a Yemen, but a Melleri could be?

Also, to me. This is completely opinion based, but I see the treatment alot of the times being worse than the parasite? Usually the parasite related death and issues here, seem to stem from treatment of the parasites not the parasites themselves?

 

[kinyonga]

I've had some WC chameleons come in with a heavy parasite load that if you treat in the normal way you kill (the chameleon). The parasite is treated as "garbage" by the chameleon's system once it's dead so killing off all the parasites at once makes too much "garbage" for the chameleon's body to handle...it becomes toxic and the chameleon dies.

Regarding parasites being transferred IN the eggs...I'd like to say no, but I have no proof of it. Not as sure about if they could be passed out of the chameleon ON the eggs. Hope you take this answer with a big grain of salt!

 

[JacksJill]

I don't doubt that the parasite eggs can reside on the egg shells (sorry no study to back that up but we know coccidia can survive for 2 years in the environment). In the case of live birth infection probably happens rather quickly inside the mothers cage.
In mammals parasite larva can migrate thru the placenta and wait in the young animals tissues and develop into adults after the animal is born. They are born with parasites. I can't recall anything like that in egg layers but the poultry industry might be a good source of information. Birds aren't reptiles but at least they are well studied.

 

[cyberlocc]

I've had some WC chameleons come in with a heavy parasite load that if you treat in the normal way you kill (the chameleon). The parasite is treated as "garbage" by the chameleon's system once it's dead so killing off all the parasites at once makes too much "garbage" for the chameleon's body to handle...it becomes toxic and the chameleon dies.

Regarding parasites being transferred IN the eggs...I'd like to say no, but I have no proof of it. Not as sure about if they could be passed out of the chameleon ON the eggs. Hope you take this answer with a big grain of salt!

I wasn't meaning, Solely or really at all WCs, I have always seen that with WCs, the key was time to get the numbers down, then follow up with treatment. I meant cases of CB chameleons that have parasites, especially young ones.

I dont think I have seen a case of coccidia on the forums, in a young CB cham that was treated and survived. They are likely here, but I dont think I have seen one. Off the top of my head, I only recall seeing deaths. Could be, just a memory trick, that I am more likely to remember the bad cases, and may have seen good ones, but just as I recall.

 

[kinyonga]

@cyberlocc I don't think I've ever treated parasites in CB chameleons...I could be forgetting a case or two since I've been keeping them for so long though.

 

[PetNcs]

Petr, this is how my vets explained it to me. The cricket farms are mostly here in the warm weather where we have tons of wild anoles and geckos. If the wild lizard gets hungry and gets in with the feeders at the cricket farm to eat a few and poops in the cricket containers, that crickets eat everything including the poop and most of the wild lizards have parasites. So if one of my chameleons eats the cricket that ate the Anole poop that he can get parasites. I’ve had coccidia several time and my vet says from this. He also said coccidia is highly contagious. Also, once Olimpia did a fecal, so to speak, of a cricket and the cricket had parasites.

and do yiu really believe this science fiction?
IMHO thisnis an absolute nonsense, the probability is NILL
In millions of crickets... poop of an anole that is so tiny as a 5 days old cricket...
I do not believe that people really believe this, it is absurd

moreover, coccidia of anoles do not attack chameleons

thenonly coccidia rhat might do it, are the rather unspecific cryptosporidians

and wirh them, the most breeders contaminate their rooms themselves

do not blame the cricket farms!!!

plus,
Of course the crickets have parasites! Many parasites! Including coccidias and including worms of various kinds.
but NO single insect parasite is transferable to chameleons with rhe exception of those that are hosted by insects. But they are hosted by specific insects such as indigenous mosquitos and NOT crickets amd nothing tjat occur in Europe or America or Asia!!! Chameleons do NOT est cricketsnin the wild as a rule! So, ther could not have neen established any host-interhost chain, because crickets can not play this role, as they never meet in the food chain...

please tell the vets not to tell you fairytales

i have in person examined about 100 fecal samples of feral chameleons from Florida.

they were clean!

the only parasites were oxyurids, and they were those of the anoles. So, in further samples they disappeared as the found eggs were not produced by the worms parasiting on chameleons but on the esten anole
And they are not transferable Mutually

 

[PetNcs]

Somethings I have wondered, is if the parasites can pass in the eggs. So we see alot of CH animals, are those babies going to be infected by parasites if the mother was?

there are rare cases of protozoans that could possibly be transfered butnin general, eggs are clean and born babies too...

 

[PetNcs]

@PetNcs Also, your "transfer across species", can you elaborate? Do you mean a Gecko to a Chameleon? Or a Jacksons to a Yemen, or is it just a matter of host/species area? So a Jacksons cant affect a Yemen, but a Melleri could be?

there is not enough research done so far so that we can say absolute statements.
But, together with D Modry, who is a world formst expert Parasitologist, we did lots of work on chameleon cocidias (one was also named after me) and the surprizing but logical takeway was: the coevolution of specific parasites and xhameleons is so much towd togetjer, that anslyzing cocidian and chameleon evolution in paralell, we get the same Trees. The attachment of rhe coccidia is so specific, that we dailed tontransfer one soecies of coccidia from one chameleon species to anotjer one even if the species lived in same area annd/or were very closely related. chameleons living in samenor adjacent areas had completely different prasite fauna andnin the case if cocidias their own Specific species.

based on this, I highly doubt on the transfernof most of the oarasites between individual species and exceptnof some stupid oxyurids and nonspecifoc cryptosporidians, s transfer of psrasites between families and animals from different continents is greatly improbable nesr to impossible

 

[PetNcs]

Also, to me. This is completely opinion based, but I see the treatment alot of the times being worse than the parasite? Usually the parasite related death and issues here, seem to stem from treatment of the parasites not the parasites themselves?

Absolutely second this
more animals die from treatment of parasites than from parasites themselves.
much more animals die from inadequate care (thisnis why I get so sensitive if talking about natiralistic husbandry), of which the manifested parasitoses with lethal consequences can be tje result BUT not vice versa!

 

[PetNcs]

I don't doubt that the parasite eggs can reside on the egg shells (sorry no study to back that up but we know coccidia can survive for 2 years in the environment). In the case of live birth infection probably happens rather quickly inside the mothers cage.
In mammals parasite larva can migrate thru the placenta and wait in the young animals tissues and develop into adults after the animal is born. They are born with parasites. I can't recall anything like that in egg layers but the poultry industry might be a good source of information. Birds aren't reptiles but at least they are well studied.

ItnIS possible but it is extremely rare as K commented before so we can takenit as excluded

 

[PetNcs]

I wasn't meaning, Solely or really at all WCs, I have always seen that with WCs, the key was time to get the numbers down, then follow up with treatment. I meant cases of CB chameleons that have parasites, especially young ones.

I dont think I have seen a case of coccidia on the forums, in a young CB cham that was treated and survived. They are likely here, but I dont think I have seen one. Off the top of my head, I only recall seeing deaths. Could be, just a memory trick, that I am more likely to remember the bad cases, and may have seen good ones, but just as I recall.

of course you will see fstslities because the ones rhat were not affected idi ly (asymptomsticslly) or healed by themselves were not subject of any concern...