T. kweichowensis dissection pics -- new imports update

[paris]

i recently got 8 new imports, many were labled 'b grade', this means ones with missing limbs/digits and ulcerations, the irony is that the b grades survived shipping. 2 died in transit, and these are ones whos conditions didnt look too bad-so i decided to dissect them to see what did them in. first here a picture of my scope, the hospital tray i salvaged from a dumpster and its come in very handy since day 1, but because my scope weighs so much i will use it for that (the metal base to my scope is 50 LBS, about 4 stone) the dissection scope has a long swing arm on it and for that reason was meant for cadavers i believe.

here is a shot of the vent showing its a female

this female had little external injuries to see, but the few she did were pronounced, like this pic of her lower jaw indicates-that is her dentary bone sticking out in the photo

opening the oral cavity you can see that the whole portion of the lower jaw near that external damage is red and inflamed (1). there is a lot of redness here, the dark red colour on the tung i am unsure if this is due to her illness or post mortem change (i dont know how long she was dead)-since i have not dissected a healthy specimen for comparison. (2) is the tung, (3) is vomerine teeth

here is a shot of the body cavity as it is when exposed, the lungs cannot be seen here, the large dark object at the top is the liver. the green colour stain on the muscle bothers me-that is a result of bile leaking out of the gall bladder-i have no way of knowing how it was punctured but a worm exiting or entering it is a valid guess.

i removed the digestive tract and looked at the lungs-you can clearly see the worms in there-they were still alive

here is the digestive tract, note bile stain in the intestine. i found only 1 worm in this tract

i am unsure about these (#1), i dont have my book on me here at school-are these the kidneys?(#2) are these some female related stuff-anyone know for sure?

all in all i only found 7 adult worms in the lungs-most in the right one and one otherwise in the body cavity and one in the digestive tract, i saw 2 different kinds of worms, a pic of them is posted here
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7/39804.html?1122066172

more pics will post soon

 

[ester]

I think 1 are kidneys and 2 is body fat when I compare your picture to the drawings on newt anatomy.

 

[edward]

Hi Paris,
The the stain leaking from the gall bladder is a normal post mortum occurance and is not the result of some other damage to the gall bladder.

Ed

 

[paris]

thanks ed, that is the only one i saw that happen in and thought it might be an unique occurance-like i said, i wasnt sure how long she had been dead-both had a very strong fishy smell, luckily im normally congested so i dont not notice it often. my preference would be to put them in ethanol but with this species when i have done that in the past it resulted in all of their skin toxins leaking out.

ester-i was wondering if it was fat, but had no reference here, it doesnt even resemble the finger-like fat bodies of a frog (the only ones i am used to in amphibian dissections), all my other dissections do not have this feature

 

[edward]

Without double checking,
unidentified #1 above should be the liver
unidentified #2 looks to be fat bodies.

(Message edited by Ed on July 23, 2005)

 

[paris]

ive got a few more photos to compare, im going to email the series to my vet and get her take on it. im guessing the worms because other than that 6 of the 8 should have survived in my opinion. the other ones are similar, one male however had huge amounts in his lungs and out lived these guys.....ive also got a theory about the worms but i need to have them ID'd and do some research on them first before i post the idea

 

[paris]

i went home and got my book (Amphibian medicine and captive husbandry) then i went to check on them, 2 died in the past 10 hours-one still has yet to get rigormortis. im taking them up to the general bio lab for dissection right after i finish my lunch here...

...., ive got the camera with me and i have the last adult with me too--2 of them have had large amounts of mucous clogging their mouths, i want to see if removing this may have any effect, having her with me may also give me a clue to the problem. my own ones from last year are still fine and are on their 3rd day of the first round of de wormer...ill post more details later along with what i have found out so far.

 

[frank]

Hi Paris,

1 should be the kidney and 2 the oviduct. The worms you point at are very probably Rhabdias. These are pretty mean creatures as they penetrate the skin and migrate through the body to the lungs. The little holes they make in the body wall can easily be infected. Be very careful with these animals and keep them strictly apart from the rest of your collection: a previous shipment to your perished due to a Ranavirus infection!

 

[edward]

Oh well,
I was mistaken. Should have double checked before I spoke.
Thanks for the clarification Frank.

Ed

 

[ester]

I'd never have recognized the oviduct, it's about 20 times thicker as in the anatomical drawing of a female newt I have in a book here. Thanks

 

[frank]

Correction, I meant a shipment to Europe...

 

[paris]

update-
the last one died this morning, and i know as of friday of the 2 justin decided were the best to keep, the female had died -im pretty sure with what has happened to mine that the male he had is probably gone too, as frank points out this same problem killed the european ones off last year, and yet i got some last year that didnt succumb to this condition-i will have to do fecals on them to see if they have the worms. in the mean time i am contacting the supplier to inform him of this and also to tell him it would not be a good idea to get these in the future from his current source, and possibly not at all. i wish mike shrom the best of luck with his larvae, they may be the only truely healthy ones in the USA.

 

[edward]

snip "the supplier to inform him of this and also to tell him it would not be a good idea to get these in the future from his current source, and possibly not at all."


The supplier is a moot point as these salamanders could be infected before they even reach the exporter.

While the worms may have been an additional factor in the deaths of the newts, I would strongly hesitate to assume it was the major cause of death given the apparent abscence of fat bodies and the lack of screening for other pathogens such as chytrid. When dealing with imports there is always going to be some loss which can vary from shipment to shipment. This is why getting a stable breeding population in captivity is important as it will lessen the demand on wc animals and reduce the loss in the pet trade (which when compared overall to losses due to habitat destruction are usually pretty minor).

Ed

 

[paris]

well seeing as he kept the best 2 and they also perished, so mortality =100%, i am not sure that is a valid assumption, they were shipped overnight with ice packs btw

 

[mark]

Hopefully shipped in a box acceptable under LACY Act standards

. Nevertheless, given the heat wave the U.S. has been receiving lately it is questionable the impact ice packs would have - perhaps just delaying the inevitable by a few hours until they've melted.

Too bad to see so many impressive animals go the way they did. How are all the kweichows from last season's import doing?

 

[edward]

Hi Mike,
the worms do show up well in the fecals but the fecals need to be collected off of a clean substrate to prevent false positives with soil nematodes.

Ed

 

[paris]

mark, yes i fear they were the walking dead from the get go, but as i had medication on hand and had good luck with last years imports, i thought it would be a similar situation this year, im not a gambler and felt the odds of something like this happening were small, i am willing to accept a 10% total shipment loss as a risk (like what happened last year) but not 100%. i wrote the supplier and told them the links and what was wrong, i suggested they not get them again as it would be a waist of time and money and encourage continued supply of animals that will risk their healthy stock by contamination potential (they have yet to write me back), this was the same company i got mine from last year, and of those i only lost a few, mostly cause i had them vetted right away and put extra effort and care into their revival, of those original 7 i got last year, 6 were alive a month later-2 eventually died from 'failure to thrive', i think some of it may have had to do with temps, the target of 60-70 for these may be too low for them in the long term, the detroit zoo keeps their shanjings at 72 year round and they breed at that and are a long term colony, i have noticed that of my 7 shanjings i got last year, the one who wasnt doing well despite eating has improved much and is eating more vigorously now that i have moved the whole group to about 75-78 F (drops to low 70's high 60's at night).

pity is many from last years imports in europe and america did die, some of us got lucky, i am not sure if mike had his vetted but i would like to hear from him about his ordeal with them. i put off giving mine panacure till they were on their feet, and as they were eating well and the drug is stressful we decided they were ok, not until i saw some pictures of what big healthy ones look like did i realize mine werent up to that standard, the talaingensis are a thinner bodied newt and the kweis were slightly bigger than that, but not as fat as my shanjings which out did both other tylos. the kweis had their first run of panacure recently and now i have to wait about 7 more days to repeat it, giving them the drug dropped their weight but i first got very worried when the only female got bloat after her first dose, luckily she went back down to normal size-i am not sure if its some sort of water balance issue from the drug or what, but they are eating ok. i have 3.1 left of my original 7 a year later, of the other 2 tylos i never lost 1, so im thinking there is something in this that is strictly related to the kweis that puts them more at risk.

 

[mark]

Paris - glad to hear at least your other Tylototriton are doing well. I was slightly confused by your USCR profile as you only had the new kweichows listed. Knowing you received some last year, I was confused as to why they were not shown in your profile. Please update your listing just to stay current and avoid confusion.

 

[edward]

snip "may have had to do with temps, the target of 60-70 for these may be too low for them in the long term, the detroit zoo keeps their shanjings at 72 year round and they breed at that and are a long term colony, i have noticed that of my 7 shanjings i got last year, the one who wasnt doing well despite eating has improved much and is eating more vigorously now that i have moved the whole group to about 75-78 F (drops "


Paris,
when did you get this information about the shanjings? This contradicts the information in the SSP as well as the conversations I had with Kevin Zippel when he was breeding them there. I am wondering if this is newer information?

Ed

 

[paris]

i visited kevin in 2000, that was what he told me-he said 72 was what he kept them at and they did fine, now i didnt take notes,so i am saying that number based on my memory, the 60-70 target is what i have gleaned from multiple sources, i should have stated 70's not 70, but the 60-mid 70's was info i got from other keepers, i dont know if kweis have different requirements, but they seem to dislike cold more than shanjings, unfortunately it is hard to get any solid answers/data, and i have gotten bad advice before (do the animals do bad because of the environment provided, or do they thrive despite the conditions?)

my shanjings were kept at about 70 for about 8 months, but when i moved them up to current conditions they seemed to improve in appetite and appearance. i read in one care sheet that they can go up to 77 for a few months but long term they should not be kept at that temp....please let me know what you know on these, you are far more informed than i since you work in the field of captive care/breeding. problem is i get conflicting data from some and others will not let you know like its some sort of trade secret!