For those of you who use bark substrate ( necropsy photos)

Well, we've had our nicest female U. henkeli for about 7 months now.... and when we picked her up she was described as a " rock" because of her huge size, and somewhat hard tummy. She went down hill over the past couple of weeks, and tonight she passed away ... Sarah pulled out her dissection kit and got to work ( at about 1AM today)
After the first couple of cuts we knew something was obviously majorly wrong.

almost immediately we both thought it was some type of intestinal blockage, or a severe egg binding issue ( but it was extremely dark, which didn't add up for egg binding).
When pushed out of the way we could see the blockage was definitely part of the intestinal tract.





Sarah was able to locate all of the major organs.... and the stomach was completely empty ( because there was no where for food to go).
With the scale set up with a deli cup, and set to zero, we put the blockage in the cup to see what it weighed.... 25 grams even!!! ( 95 grams was the gravid weight for this female)

with the blockage broken down and all spread out it looked like this

and 21 pieces of orchid bark! ( which we have never even used in the enclosure! however the previous owner used this as part of his substrate mix)

and finally a little bit closer on the bark


So it wasn't the greatest night for us because she was probably one of the most gorgeous U. henkeli we had ever seen.... But atleast we know she didn't meet her demise from an error on our part.

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damn man sorry about that, I've never heard of that much substrate in a gecko before.

That's horrible. What a waste of a beautiful creature! I'm satisfied trading a naturalistic appearance for utility by using paper towel and repticarpet in my enclosures, but then I don't keep uroplatus either (yet).

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Terri
many rhacodactylus and
1 Eublepharis macularius

I'm very sorry for your loss. She was a very beautiful U. henkeli. That was a lot of substrate in your gecko....scary.

I still like the naturalistic set ups. I just changed the substrate of all the enclosures last night from coconut/orchid bark to EcoEarth/Forest Bed substrate. However, I still use paper towel substrate for the much younger cresteds and will remain to do so.

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"Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you"

Sorry for your loss. I'm surprised she lived as long as she did with all that substrate in her.

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LeAnn
www.keepsakeknits.com


6.2.3 Rhacodactylus ciliatus
3.0.3 Theloderma corticale (mossy frogs)
4.2.0 Thamnophis radix (plains garter snakes)
0.1.0 Thamnophis proximus (coastal ribbon snake)
0.1.0 T. sirtalis pickeringii (Puget Sound garter snake)
1.2.0 T. atratus atratus (Santa Cruz garter snake)

wow, that was a lot of bark. so sorry for your loss. this is a definite lesson learned for some people. i use repticarpet and newspaper, im scared of the very same thing happening to my babies.

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lindsey

0.1.0 ciliatus
1.1.0 auriculatus
1.0.0 pogona viticeps

Very nice necropsy sequence, Andrew and nice that you guys had the fortitude to go through with everything. Too bad about the gecko, though. I've seen impactions like this in ciliatus housed over loose substrates occasionally.

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~Alan
www.downeastherps.com

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Mark Twain

That's unbelievable, I can't believe how bad that blockage was. Nice photos though Andrew, sorry to hear about your loss.

Thanks for posting such a detailed sequence of photos for us all to learn from. And of course sorry for your loss, but I think this will help all Uroplatus keepers and future lives of Uroplatus in captivity.

geez, im sorry man, but that is incredible for that much to in there. nice photos. she was one of my favs of yours.

i guess from now on im keepin any uroplatus i get on concrete slab...heh.

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maybe punch him in the seed or somethin, he deserves it

mike