Lineatus necropsy

[sarasin]

Originally Posted by Allen Repashy

Thanks for taking the time to show all the detailed pics. I have gone so far as to cut eggs out of rare specimens that I basically watched expire and had good success hatching good looking eggs. My original Red Australian Frilled Dragon female died in labor (1990) and I hatched out eight eggs that I removed right as she expired due to egg binding.... Death sucks, but if you can save eggs, it goes on for the bloodline at least.

Thank you Allen, that's very interesting. We didn't think the eggs looked any good so we didn't bother to incubate them, although after what you said we probably would if god forbid this happens with another 'rare' gecko.

[OctagonGecko729]

Email from a few seconds ago. My lineatus died because of fatty liver syndrome and Kyles male lineatus died showing all the same signs as mine had. The correlations are growing a bit, but we will see what Dr. Stahl says as it is normal for some fat to go to the liver in gravid females.

Hi Chris,

I will have Dr. Stahl look at them tomorrow and get you some feedback. Right off the bat i can tell you that the liver was quite unhappy, especially if the necropsy was done close to death.

Anyway, ill get back to you asap.


Thanks

Anibal Armendaris, LVT
Media Manager

[Spyral]

Was there any stomach contents found during the necropsy? Or was the stomach empty?

[sarasin]

There was nothing to see in the stomach (no blockage etc) but she had eaten a couple of snails 2 days before

[sarasin]

Update I recieved a report thanks to Chris
Looks like she died from :
-excessive fat stores (possibly from over feeding).
-Fatty/pale liver
-retained ovaducal egg
-excessive follicular activity on ovaries with possible egg stasis.

[Spyral]

So they weren't able to identify which of those issues finally did her in.

Do you mind sharing your feeding schedule and type of prey fed?

[OctagonGecko729]

Nah they weren't they mightve been able to do a bit more if they had done the necropsy themselves or sent off for a biopsy.

I think the common problem between this lineatus, mine, and kyles was that they all had a fatty liver. We might be putting on a bit too much weight on lineatus. Since we have no idea what these animals are eating in the wild its kind of hard to figure out what level of fat we should be feeding them. My male was over 50g when he died and I think we should probably be keeping lineatus males at around 37-40g.