• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Black spot near mouth, haven't been able to identify and am concerned...

Q

quidamphx

New member
My snow corn has a small blackish spot near her mouth. At first I was concerned that it could be an indication of a problem, but anything I thought to check hasn't shed any light on it.

I looked at her gums and they're nice and pink and healthy. No strange breathing noises, and no other odd spots on her body. (On a white snake it's pretty obvious).

I also tried wiping it with a wet q-tip in case it was a piece of substrate stuck to her, however it didn't wipe off.

She's currently using blue aspen (Fluker's) bedding, which i put in her tank about a month ago. Before that it was CareFresh. I mention this in case there's a chance for mites, although I would've expected to see more than one spot if that was the case. I don't know how common it is to get mites from packaged bedding though.

She always been a healthy snake, but as I had an RI with a different snake a few months ago I'm concerned about anything I notice!

Lousy quality phone pic attached. Any tips? Thanks :)
 

Attachments

  • Untitled.jpg
    Untitled.jpg
    90.1 KB · Views: 53
Really hard to tell from the picture. Almost looks like a superficial wound that could clear up in a shed or two. As for mites, one of the easiest ways to get reptile mites is from reptile bedding sold in pet stores. But you would definitely know if it was mites as there would be more of them and they'd be moving.

Not sure if you've opened her mouth up all the way and checked the coloration and condition in the mouth for potential signs of mouth rot, but it's usually accompanied with a fair amount of swelling and is pretty easy to notice.

Curious what others chime in with.
 
Yeah, one of the curses of trying to use an iPhone to take photos with one hand!

She's been ridiculously active the last few weeks; climbing and falling multiple times a day so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a small injury. Most of the time it's been a nose-dive into the water dish, but there is a branch and a few other non-soft objects.

I haven't looked inside her mouth, but I'll watch careful in a couple days when she gets fed. There's always a huge stretch right after which makes seeing everything nice and easy.
 
You can probably put your thumb on her lip right below the spot and roll her lip down enough to expose the gum/jaw inside, to see if you see anything suspicious.
 
Nanci, I went to find her after work tonight to do just that. After last night I guess she said 'screw this' to just being under her hide and went completely under the substrate!

Anyway, that spot near her mouth, whatever it was, is no longer there. Weird because I had wiped at it. Makes me wonder even more what the heck it was!

Good sign I guess, but I'd rather wonder about something that turn out to not be a big deal than ignore it.

Thanks for the feedback, both of you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top