HTTPS://JOURNALS.KU.EDU/REPTILESANDAMPHIBIANSTABLE OF CONTENTS IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANSREPTILES • VOL & AMPHIBIANS15, NO 4 • DEC 2008 • 28(2):189 224–226 • AUG 2021
IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS CONSERVATION AND NATURAL HISTORY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
IntestinalFEATURE ARTICLES Obstruction Associated with a . Chasing Bullsnakes (Pituophis catenifer sayi) in Wisconsin: ParasiticOn the Road to Understanding Infection the Ecology and Conservation of the inMidwest’s a Giant Wild-caughtSerpent ...... Joshua M. Kapfer 190 . The Shared History of Treeboas (Corallus grenadensis) and Humans on Grenada: Pope’s A GreenHypothetical Excursion ...... Pitviper, TrimeresurusRobert W. Hendersonpopeiorum 198 RESEARCH ARTICLES . The Texas Horned Lizard in Central and WesternSmith Texas ...... 1937 Emily Henry, Jason Brewer, Krista Mougey, and Gad Perry 204 . The Knight Anole (Anolis equestris) in Florida ...... Brian J. Camposano, Kenneth L. Krysko, Kevin M. Enge, Ellen M. Donlan, and Michael Granatosky 212 Lal Biakzuala1, Hmar Tlawmte Lalremsanga1, Vishal Santra2, Joseph Ramhermawia3, Chenkual Malsawmtluangi4, CONSERVATION ALERT and Hmar Lalrinkima5 . 1Developmental BiologyWorld’s and Mammals Herpetology in Crisis Laboratory, ...... Department of Zoology, Mizoram University, Aizawl–796004,...... Mizoram, India 220 ([email protected]) . More Than Mammals ...... 223 2Society for Nature Conservation Research and Community Engagement, Nalikul, Hooghly–712407, West Bengal, India . The “Dow Jones Index” of Biodiversity ...... 225 3Department of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Extension Education, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Selesih–796014, Mizoram, India 4 HUSBANDRYDepartment of Zoology, Pachhunga University College, Aizawl–796001, Mizoram, India 5Department of Veterinary Parasitology, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Selesih–796014, Mizoram, India . Captive Care of the Central Netted Dragon ...... Shannon Plummer 226
PROFILE . Kraig Adler: A Lifetime Promoting Herpetology ...... Michael L. Treglia 234 ecal impaction, also known as coprostasis, is the inability During our initial examination of the snake, we detected to pass a largeCOMMENTARY inspissated stool from the lower gastroin- an elongated rigid mass (ca. 9.5 mm in length) by gently F . testinal (GI) tract (ObokhareThe Turtles Have 2012). Been Watching Obstructions Me ...... of the GI palpating the lower abdominal Eric Gangloff area close238 to the vent. The tract and subsequentBOOK abdominal REVIEW distension in snakes may snake was quarantined in a glass terrarium at room tempera- be caused by parasitism,. Threatened tumors, Amphibians abscesses, of the World granulomas, edited by S.N. Stuart, for- M. Hoffmann,ture and, J.S. when Chanson, offered N.A. Cox, lab mice, did not feed. It occasionally eign bodies, or fecal impactionR. Berridge, P. Ramani,(Diaz-Figueroa and B.E. Young and ...... Mitchell drank some water while being Robert sprayed Powell to243 maintain humidity. 2006). In both captive and wild snakes, only a few published While attempting to allow the animal to recover from trans- CONSERVATION RESEARCH REPORTS: Summaries of Published Conservation Research Reports ...... 245 cases document GINATURAL blockage HISTORY in either RESEARCH captive REPORTSor wild snakes;: Summaries of Publishedport and Reports handling on Natural stressHistory ...... and also avoid 247 possible spreading of these include obstruction NEWBRIEFS by ...... a foreign body in the GI tract disease from the...... wild, as suggested by Schneller 248 and Pantchev EDITORIAL INFORMATION ...... 251 of a Black Ratsnake FOCUS (Pantherophis ON CONSERVATION obsoletus: A )Project (Souza You Canet Supportal...... (2008), the snake died of unknown causes 252 at ca. 1100 h on 3 2004), a fecalith possibly obstructing the gut of a Pine Snake October 2019. (Pituophis melanoleucus) (Jessup 1980), a malignant tumor A fecalith (9.16 × 38.8 mm) was carefully expressed (Fig. causing partial obstruction in a Corn Snake (Pantherophis 1). Because it was firmly encapsulated by the gut lining, it guttatus) (Latimer and Rich 1998),Front Cover.and ShannonGI obstructions Plummer. was cutBack off Cover. before Michael performing Kern a necropsy. The visceral organs induced by fecaliths in a BurmeseTotat Python et velleseque (Python audant bivittatus mo ) wereTotat dissected et velleseque and audant cleansed mo with an 8.5% saline solution. The (Long Beach Animal Hospital, undated)estibus inveliquo and a veliqueRed Diamondrerchil intestineestibus inveliquo looked velique normal; rerchil however, endoparasitic nematodes erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus Rattlesnake (Crotalus ruber) (Corbitaut dolor et apictoal. 2014). invere pe dolumThe lat- (twoaut dolor males, apicto inverefour pefemales) dolum were present (the sex of an ascarid ter was the first and only existing fugiatispublished maionsequat record eumque of such a nematodefugiatis maionsequat can be determinedeumque by the bent tail of males or the case in a pitviper. Herein, we reportmoditia the ererefirst nonsedis case of ma intestinal sectiatur straightmoditia erere tails nonsedis of females).ma sectia- The worms were removed, fixed, ma derrovitae voluptam, as quos tur ma derrovitae voluptam, as obstruction associated with a helminthaccullabo. parasitic infection in a and stored in 70% ethanol; two individuals were immersed wild-caught Pope’s Green Pitviper (Trimeresurus popeiorum) in Lactophenol Cotton Blue and temporarily mounted for from Mizoram, India. light microscopy (Fig. 2). An adult male Pope’s Green Pitviper (SVL 603 mm, We dissected and examined the fecalith under a micro- weight 46.6 g) was collected on 27 September 2019 at scope, revealing parasitic worm eggs having a characteristic Durtlang, Mizoram (23°47'12.09"N, 92°43'37.21"E; elev. round shape, a conspicuously pitted shell, and a thick albu- 1,206 m asl). Because the snake was dehydrated and lethar- minous layer containing an unsegmented embryo. We also gic, with signs of possible pathology (Jessup 1980; Souza et found some indigestible hair, possibly from a small rodent, al. 2004), it was relocated to the Developmental Biology and and some plant matter, almost certainly from the viscera of Herpetology Laboratory, Mizoram University, India. the prey (i.e., Corbit et al. 2014).
Copyright is held by the authors. Articles in R&A are made available under a 224 Reptiles & Amphibians ISSN 2332-4961 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. BIAKZUALA ET AL. REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS • 28(2): 224–226 • AUG 2021
Ophidascaris infections have been reported from vari- ous Asian snakes, including a Burmese Python (P. bivitta- tus), Indian Python (P. molurus), King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah), King Ratsnake (Elaphe carinata), and Buff-striped Keelback (Amphiesma stolatum) (Teixeira de Freitas 1968). In viperids, Ophidascaris excavata specifically has been reported in the Short-tailed Mamushi (Gloydius brevicaudus) (Li et al. 2014), O. agkistrodontis in the Chinese Moccasin (Deinagkistrodon acutus) (Wang et al. 1979), and Ophidascaris spp. in American rattlesnakes (Crotalus spp.) (Carbajal- Márquez et al. 2018). This report represents the first case of an Ophidascaris infection in T. popeiorum, and the first reported case of fecal impaction in this arboreal crotalid. Although we cannot conclude with certainty that the intesti- nal obstruction resulted from the Ophidascaris infection, we suggest that the endoparasitic helminth infection was linked to the emaciation of the snake.
Fig. 1. Wild-captured Pope’s Green Pitviper (Trimeresurus popeiorum) having fecalith impaction: (A) Postero-ventral view of the snake in life showing the rigid mass close to the vent; (B) the fecalith was removed by gently compressing the area anterior to the vent of the dead snake; (C) dead snake with the removed fecalith. Photographs by Lal Biakzuala.
The nematodes were macroscopically brownish ante- riorly and white posteriorly; anterior extremity with three roughly rectangular lips with papillae, well-developed inter- labia, and deep postlabials; the posterior portion of male was bent, whereas that of the female was straight; tails of both sexes conical with very small nipple-like tips and anus located near posterior end (Fig. 2). The mean (range) body lengths of the nematodes were 85.7 mm (84.0–87.4 mm) and 123.7 mm (120.5–127 mm) in males and females, respectively. Based on the aforementioned features and published works
(Sprent 1988; Li et al. 2016; Suwanti et al. 2018), we identi- Fig. 2. An ascarid parasite (Ophidascaris sp.) recovered from the intestinal fied the eggs and the nematode as a species of Ophidascaris tract of a Pope’s Green Pitviper (Trimeresurus popeiorum): (A) Anterior Baylis 1921, an ascarid genus of nematodes commonly found portion of a male, ventral view, head with lips showing papillae (i), inter- in reptiles (Sundar et al. 2016). We also examined 10 addi- labial, and deep postlabial (ii); (B) posterior extremity of a male showing the ventrally bent tail with a nipple-like tip (iii); (C) anterior portion of a tional preserved museum specimens of T. popeiorum collected female showing the esophagus (iv); (D) lateral view of the straight female from nature, but found no parasitic worms in their digestive posterior extremity with the anus located near the end (v) and a small tracts. However, one snake did contain a semi-digested tail nipple-like tip (vi); (E) egg of the ascarid parasite with a conspicuously pit- ted shell; (F) a semi-digested tail of a bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus sp.) in of a bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus sp.) (Fig. 2F), a prey item the intestinal tract of the preserved T. popeiorum. Photographs by Joseph which has not been reported (Das 2018). Ramhermawia (nematode) and Lal Biakzuala (tail of bent-toed gecko).
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During our observation period, the snake neither def- (Pituophis melanoleucus). Journal of Wildlife Diseases 16: 419–421. https://doi. ecated nor fed on offered prey items. According to Lillywhite org/10.7589/0090-3558-16.3.419. Latimer, K. and G. Rich. 1998. Colonic adenocarcinoma in a corn snake (Elaphe et al. (2002), most arboreal vipers defecate soon after feeding guttata guttata). Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine 29: 344–346. to increase mobility and lower the energy required to counter- Li, L., Y.N. Guo, J. Li, and L.P. Zhang. 2014. Ophidascaris wangi sp. n. and O. act gravity. Further, excess mass is unpropitious for arboreal najae (Gedoelst, 1916) (Ascaridida: Ascarididae) from snakes in China. Folia Parasitologica 61: 571–580. https://doi.org/10.14411/fp.2014.059. snakes as they often rely on unstable branches and compara- Li, L., W.T. Zhao, H.X. Chen, Y.N. Guo, and L.P. Zhang. 2016. Morphological tively weak substrata for support (Lillywhite and Henderson study of Ophidascaris excavata Hsü & Hoeppli, 1931 (Ascaridida: Ascarididae) 1993). from Gloydius brevicaudus (Stejneger) (Reptilia: Viperidae). Systematic Parasitology 93: 69–75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-015-9605-9. Lillywhite, H.B. and R.W. Henderson. 1993. Behavioral and functional ecology Acknowledgements of arboreal snakes, pp. 1–48. In: R.A. Seigel and J.T. Collins (eds.), Snakes: We are thankful to the Head, Department of Zoology, Ecology and Behavior. McGraw-Hill, New York, New York, USA. Pachhunga University College, Aizawl, and the Dean, College Lillywhite, H.B., P. de Delva, and B.P. Noonan. 2002. Patterns of gut passage time and the chronic retention of fecal mass in viperid snakes, pp. 497–506. In: of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Selesih (C.V.Sc. G.W. Schuett, W.M. Höggren, M.E. Douglas, and H.W. Greene (eds.), Biology & A.H.) for providing the facilities needed for the present of the Vipers. Eagle Mountain Publishing, Eagle Mountain, Utah, USA. study. We are grateful to the veterinarians at the C.V.Sc. & Long Beach Animal Hospital. Undated. Snake fecalith.
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