Limb amputation

I had to do a little "minor" surgery a few weeks back. One of my waltl larvae had a really messed up foot. It was biten almost off, but still hanging on a little. I made the decision to remove the whole limb. My thinking was that it would regenerate and be much better then if I had just left it chewed up and deformed. It seems to not be growing back very well however. There is no infection and he is doing quite well, but its just a stump. I am wondering if it is just going to take longer now that it is older. There are many larvea with missing limbs and I think they are all growing back rather well. I have one that had both its arms bitten off and he seems to be doing fine, but they are taking a while as well. Is the anything I could try to speed up the regenerating process? Has anyone else had to amputate limbs and found they grew back slower then when naturally lost? It doesn't seem like that makes any sense.

In theory, a limb should be able to grow back more easily if it is cut off cleanly. However, there are various factors that affect regeneration. For example, the first thing that happens after the injury/amputation is that the skin grows over the stump. If this new skin is disrupted, the regeneration process can be completely halted. It may or may not continue to regenerate when the skin closes again. There are other events that can also screw up the process. I suspect this larva was just unfortunate and the process did not get initiated properly for whatever reason. It's a slow process, so don't give up just yet. There's nothing you can do to speed it up.

There are occasions when even cleanly amputated limbs do not regrow. I had a marble salamander have an amputation that did not regrow and more recently a Pleurodeles waltl that lost the right hind limb up to the hip socket. Both healed well and behaviorally acted totally normally.

Ed

(Message edited by Ed on November 27, 2006)