Why I Hate the Wild Caught Trade

[JoeVet]

FWIW I am a veterinary Pathologist and I do like chams. I like the photos but I see a different story, closer to what Dr Ferret suggested. In the first picture, it looks like a filarid worm is on the left most rib, next to the bruise. Can't tell for sure without being there. Filarids are common in wild caught chameleons and can cause the rib bruising. I don't see fractured ribs but what I do see is total atrophy of the abdominal fat pad just below the cloaca (pic 4). My story would be that this is a parasitized animal in poor condition that died from stress and nutritional deficiency. He was not eating for the time you had him and the atrophied fat pad suggests he hasn't eaten for some time before you acquired him. We see one filarid worm which isn't likely the main cause of death but suggests there may be more unseen parasites and they may have contributed. A blood smear may pick up microfilaria in the blood if you have both male and female worms present. The lungs look good to me. It is congested but I don't see hemorrhage and the membranes and air sacs are clear. The one side is more congested due to blood settling in the down side (postmortem lividity). That's my guess. Next time give me a call and we can make slides.

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

This is an interesting post that sheds light on a subject that is long overdue. There are about a half dozen (4-6) main land Africa species that are imported in excessively high numbers and appears in in these high numbers in less then par conditions. This thread is a good start to demand improved export and import conditions. If done properly the first time you won't need the excessive quotas and you should have healthy chameleons to export as seen with more conservative exports other places that exports chameleons. Plus there is the prospects of a revision of the quotas to more appropriate/practicle numbers. A great place to start would be Trioceros melleri. However not limited to Trioceros bitaeniatus, Chamaeleo africanus, Chamaeleo dilepis, Chamaeleo gracilis, and Chamaeleo senegalensis.

I have for always and a long long time now advocated to look to buy captive bred first before choosing to buy wild caught chameleons.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[jajeanpierre]

FWIW I am a veterinary Pathologist and I do like chams. I like the photos but I see a different story, closer to what Dr Ferret suggested. In the first picture, it looks like a filarid worm is on the left most rib, next to the bruise. Can't tell for sure without being there. Filarids are common in wild caught chameleons and can cause the rib bruising. I don't see fractured ribs but what I do see is total atrophy of the abdominal fat pad just below the cloaca (pic 4). My story would be that this is a parasitized animal in poor condition that died from stress and nutritional deficiency. He was not eating for the time you had him and the atrophied fat pad suggests he hasn't eaten for some time before you acquired him. We see one filarid worm which isn't likely the main cause of death but suggests there may be more unseen parasites and they may have contributed. A blood smear may pick up microfilaria in the blood if you have both male and female worms present. The lungs look good to me. It is congested but I don't see hemorrhage and the membranes and air sacs are clear. The one side is more congested due to blood settling in the down side (postmortem lividity). That's my guess. Next time give me a call and we can make slides.

Thanks for chiming in.

I didn't see any worms and I was looking for them. I have seen threadlike worms in the coelom of a 13g quad during necropsy, but nothing in this one and nothing under the skin unless they were very very small. I think I would have noticed more than 1/4 inch if alive. I didn't open the GI tract, which I'm sure had a lot of parasites in it. That first picture shows the bruise and all the bubbles that was the most obvious thing to me when I peeled the skin back. It was the bubbles I was trying to get a picture of. There is a greenish color to the bruise. In the second picture, it shows that same spot from the inside (the green area). I think what you are thinking are filarial worms in the first picture is all the bubbly gunk that was fairly viscous and ropey so tended to end up in strings after I pulled the skin off. Plus there was some ragged muscle tissue from my doing a poor job peeling the skin back. I didn't have a scalpel and used a small pair of scissors for everything except cutting through the ribs and joints. I started pulling back the skin at that spot, so it might have taken me a bit to figure out how to get the skin off cleanly.

Doesn't that look like healing fractured ribs in the second picture--the second and third ribs from the left? I thought they only had one joint in the middle of the rib, not two.

Is that little pinky thing in the middle of the empty space near his cloaca the non-existent fat pad?

That week was a very sad time for Joel and I. I'm so glad his two young ones are doing so well.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I think you are on to something--even a dying animal will perk up and look a lot better than they really are when they feel threatened or even just stimulated.

Oh aboslutely! Exotics are infamous for this exact phenomenon. It's called the "death rally" by many vets because we see it so commonly. And not just reptiles, small mammals and birds do it too. They are barely compensating and then with a threat/stimuli or even just right before death they all seem to perk up and suddenly improve (which uses the last of their reserves)....and then promptly die. It's a defense mechanism so a predator doesn't think they're an easy target. In bearded dragons especially we see very high blood glucose levels within the last few days before death. It's like the body dumps all its final resources in one last ditch effort to act normal, which rarely is enough to pull through. I've been fooled by it several times even knowing to look for it. They are infamous for giving false hope right before death sadly.

In the second picture, it shows that same spot from the inside (the green area).

Sorry I should have pointed that out from the beginning...that's staining from the gall bladder, not bruising.

Doesn't that look like healing fractured ribs in the second picture--the second and third ribs from the left? I thought they only had one joint in the middle of the rib, not two.

They are not articulations like you can see in dogs closer to the sternum as someone suggested. They definitely could be healing fractures but older than initially suspected. But I've attached a picture of a veiled chameleon necropsy I did a few years ago that had quite a few similar looking nodules on the ribs. No trauma in that one's history and was captive bred. That one didn't have obvious evidence of MBD but possibly could have when he was younger. But that would imply that those nodules can stay for many months despite original cause. So if those were fractures in the Mellers it could have been even before collection. Without histopathology of those nodules it's impossible to say what they are unfortunately.

Is that little pinky thing in the middle of the empty space near his cloaca the non-existent fat pad?

Yes. It's super tiny. Should be much larger - see the one in picture attached (big whitish blob most caudal ventral region)

 

[OldChamKeeper]

I'm digging this thread, much better than the "My mom won't let me warm up the animal" type of crap lately.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Oh aboslutely! Exotics are infamous for this exact phenomenon. It's called the "death rally" by many vets because we see it so commonly. And not just reptiles, small mammals and birds do it too. They are barely compensating and then with a threat/stimuli or even just right before death they all seem to perk up and suddenly improve (which uses the last of their reserves)....and then promptly die. It's a defense mechanism so a predator doesn't think they're an easy target. In bearded dragons especially we see very high blood glucose levels within the last few days before death. It's like the body dumps all its final resources in one last ditch effort to act normal, which rarely is enough to pull through. I've been fooled by it several times even knowing to look for it. They are infamous for giving false hope right before death sadly.

Sorry I should have pointed that out from the beginning...that's staining from the gall bladder, not bruising.

They are not articulations like you can see in dogs closer to the sternum as someone suggested. They definitely could be healing fractures but older than initially suspected. But I've attached a picture of a veiled chameleon necropsy I did a few years ago that had quite a few similar looking nodules on the ribs. No trauma in that one's history and was captive bred. That one didn't have obvious evidence of MBD but possibly could have when he was younger. But that would imply that those nodules can stay for many months despite original cause. So if those were fractures in the Mellers it could have been even before collection. Without histopathology of those nodules it's impossible to say what they are unfortunately.

Yes. It's super tiny. Should be much larger - see the one in picture attached (big whitish blob most caudal ventral region)

I think that death rally happens in people, too. I've been told by nurses that when critically ill patients perk up, to be on alert because they might be dying imminently.

Thanks for the picture of the poor little veiled. The lesions on the ribs moved in a similar way to your picture--they were quite stable but they had some movement. They really looked like they had to be fractures to me but the callous seemed to look like it was made out of whatever ligaments are made of, but I don't know what a callous is supposed to look like. The bones in that area were really strong and thick, no flex to them, so hit hard enough they would break not bend. It took a lot to cut through them. I weighed him before necropsy at 280-something grams so he would have been a much bigger boy if he was in good condition. My scale is one used for chemistry and is accurate.

Aren't commercially bred veileds now so nutritionally compromised for generations that they now hatch with MBD? Couldn't your veiled have fractured the ribs long ago and then they healed or incompletely healed? I have a wild-caught gracilior male that I just bought. He's been in captivity a year and was imported as a baby, so small the importer mistook him for a baby quad. On one side of his rib cage, there is a slightly caved in area. It looks like either someone pinched him and broke a lot of ribs or whacked him with a stick. Whenever he finally dies, I'll make sure I document his ribs during necropsy.

What did you make of all the bubbling between the skin and the rib cage? There seemed to be a lot of clear ropey viscous fluid associated with the bubbles. I don't know when he died--in the night some time--and it took me a few hours the next day to pull him out of the cage and put him in the fridge (I was really upset about it and just didn't want to go near him). Were the bubbles from him being at 65F to 70F for at most 10 hours after death?

 

[JoeVet]

What did you make of all the bubbling between the skin and the rib cage? There seemed to be a lot of clear ropey viscous fluid associated with the bubbles. I don't know when he died--in the night some time--and it took me a few hours the next day to pull him out of the cage and put him in the fridge (I was really upset about it and just didn't want to go near him). Were the bubbles from him being at 65F to 70F for at most 10 hours after death?

I agree with Dr Ferret. The bubbles are most probably an artifact produced by pulling the skin off. That squiggle on the left rib may just be a string of protein but I thought it suspicious. Still, not finding the parasite doesn't mean the bruise couldn't be from migrating parasites that was not found. The biggest finding is that atrophic fat pad. He had no energy reserves at all. Look at the veiled and then look at the Meller's. Likely he was not fed between the time he was caught and when you acquired him. Certainly he wasn't fed enough.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

The bubbles are most probably an artifact produced by pulling the skin off.

Yep totally agree.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I agree with Dr Ferret. The bubbles are most probably an artifact produced by pulling the skin off. That squiggle on the left rib may just be a string of protein but I thought it suspicious. Still, not finding the parasite doesn't mean the bruise couldn't be from migrating parasites that was not found. The biggest finding is that atrophic fat pad. He had no energy reserves at all. Look at the veiled and then look at the Meller's. Likely he was not fed between the time he was caught and when you acquired him. Certainly he wasn't fed enough.

I agree with Dr Ferret. The bubbles are most probably an artifact produced by pulling the skin off. That squiggle on the left rib may just be a string of protein but I thought it suspicious. Still, not finding the parasite doesn't mean the bruise couldn't be from migrating parasites that was not found. The biggest finding is that atrophic fat pad. He had no energy reserves at all. Look at the veiled and then look at the Meller's. Likely he was not fed between the time he was caught and when you acquired him. Certainly he wasn't fed enough.

That bit of flesh-colored material covering the far left rib in the out of focus picture? That was just a piece of muscle from my sloppy job of separating the skin from the musculature below it. I kind of hacked up the muscles between the ribs in that area. It was the place I started and only used a pair of scissors not a scalpel.

So the bubbles are nothing? There weren't any bubbles when I pulled the skin back on on the other side. I can't remember which side he was laying on when he died (I believe the bubbly side) and I certainly don't have a clue which side I put him on when I put him in the fridge.

Thanks so much for your input.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

which side he was laying on when he died (I believe the bubbly side)

That's probably what caused it more on that side. Fluid will accumulate on the down side after death and since it's not just water (proteins, etc in it) it tends to make bubbles easier. I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the non down side either though. There are tiny amounts of fluid between the skin and the muscle in the subcutaneous space so when you peel them apart you can actually see it, sometimes as bubbles.