Organ regeneration

[mike]

Speaking to a guy who had a very dehydrated Salamandra that had developed secondary problems following re-hydration, "I put it on wet paper
towels and it regained all the water it had lost. For the first days it hardly moved. After 4-5 days it began to move normally." then came secondary problems!
I suggested that it could be suffering from renal misfunction/failure.
His reply was "If kidneys are damaged, shouldn't they be able to regenerate them?"

 

[jennifer]

Regeneration can occur when certain body parts are cut off. I suspect that it does not occur of the organ is damaged on a small scale, but not removed. Also, regeneration takes weeks; the animal could die from lack of organ function before that.

I've heard people say that nearly any salamander organ can regenerate, but I think this may be a myth. More reliable information I have seen indicates that only certain body parts can regenerate, and I doubt that kidney is one of them.

 

[mike]

Thanks Jen,
As I suspected, a really fascinating subject of which I know little about.

 

[sergé]

I fully agree with Jennifer. I have seen complete regeneration of limbs, but organs is something different...would be handy though if you are heavy drinker and you can just develop a new liver ;-)

 

[mike]

Continuing this conversation, but bringing it down a level! perhaps Triturus can.....hence the expression "****** AS A NEWT."

This subject is close to my heart as can be seen by my Signature below.

 

[pollywog]

Zebrafish have the ability to regenerate organs including the heart.
If the Salamanders organ was damaged on a small scale then.... Who knows?

 

[francesco]

I'm the guy and the sick salamander is one of my 3 years old bernardezi

I'll tell you all the story. What happened is that the salamander got stuck in between the water dish and the terrarium. When I found it was badly dehydrated. As Mike said problems came some days after when it shed its skin cos I think it caught a bacterial infection around its mouth and on the head which I suppose were the most damaged parts. However the inside of the mouth was all right.

What I've been doing for the last 3 days is:
in the morning I'm putting a powder used by humans to help wounds heal quiklier
in the evening I'm putting an antibiotic (gentamicyn)
I also used an antimicotic before starting with the other 2 medicines because fungi were beginning to develop. The white tufts infact were what made me notice something was going wrong in the recovery of the salamander.

I don't want to speak too soon but the infection around the mouth seems to be a bit better now. It is not eating but I think that's not suprising after what it's been through.

How would I be able to tell if it has kidney problems?

Mike Thanx for your help.

 

[frank]

Hi Franceseco,
Be very careful using gentamycin as this drug is highly nephrotoxic (toxic for the kidneys), certainly in dehydrated animals.

 

[francesco]

Could it be toxic even if put on the mouth only externally?

 

[mike]

How's the patient doing now Francesco?

 

[francesco]

It got worse and then died