# worm sticking out my frog?????????



## MSteele

just noticed this today. 
the head of the pheonix worm is sticking out on the left side of the frog just over the arm. if you look at the back of the frog you can see a lump - that is the rest of the pheonix worm.
this is weird cause i fed the worms to these frogs about 2 1/2 weeks ago and it just now shows up.
i would think that if the worm busted through the digestion track it would kill the frog?
or maybe this was a worm that ate its way into the frog died and the frogs immune system was pushing the worm back out like we do when we get a splinter?
casue when i pulled the worm out it smelled of rott.
the frog seems ok. he just bleed a little and jumped awy into the tnak. i will watch him for a few weeks.
*
i also fed these worms to one other group of frogs. my cobalts and the female is now dead after 5 yrs of perfect heath. has to be the worms!. i posted her death on the board a few weeks ago, and she died 3 or 4 days after i fed the worms to her. thank god i did not feed them to any other of my frogs.


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## MSteele

this is the worm.!!!!! this is like ALIEN
is anyone else have problems with pheonix worm?


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## back2eight

that's freaky :!:


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## bluedart

Dear god... that's so creepy! NO MORE PHOENIX WORMS!


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## Dunner97074

Years back when I used to keep all sorts of lizards I was told not to feed mealworms because while they would be eaten, they may not be dead and could eat their way out. Now I don't know if this is true or even possible but it kind of looks that way...
Mike


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## JL-Exotics

Just out of curiosity... was the affected frog a WC or captive bred?


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## Darks!de

The first thing I thought was bot fly.

Luke


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## JL-Exotics

Darks!de said:


> The first thing I thought was bot fly.
> 
> Luke


My thoughts exactly... I've only seen them in mammals though. Have they been known to use amphibian hosts??


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## JL-Exotics

JL-Exotics said:


> [quote="Darks!de":1g454e5h]The first thing I thought was bot fly.
> 
> Luke


My thoughts exactly... I've only seen them in mammals though. Have they been known to use amphibian hosts??[/quote:1g454e5h]

Just answered my own question. This is from the "Frog Decline Reversal Project, Inc. website:

"Another prominent parasite of the Far North is not a worm but a maggot which usually only occupies the frog on a temporary basis. With the parasitic fly Batrachomyia sp., the adult fly lands on the frog and lays its eggs under the frog's skin. The larvae then develop and when they are ready to pupate into a fly, they use three hooks on their head to cut their way out from under the frog's skin before dropping into the soil to pupate."


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## Jordan B

That certainly changed my thoughts on phoenix worms. I'm wondering whether the frogs digestive system isn't powerful enough to break them down. That's why when you feed, say, a beardy a mealworm they crunch down on it a few times to crack that chitin open so that that insides are digestible. Seeing as the frogs don't have a hard pallet and don't chew, maybe the worms sre just sitting there trying to eat there way out. Sorry to hear about that Neko, good luck with the frogs!


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## JL-Exotics

> this is weird cause i fed the worms to these frogs about 2 1/2 weeks ago and it just now shows up.


How big were the phoenix worms when you fed them?


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## OneTwentySix

I was under the impression that maggots don't chew, but rather use digestive enzymes, which wouldn't be able to get through the stomach wall. How is the frog doing?


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## kyle1745

From the looks of the frog it looks like the worm have have never left the mouth. Granted still concerning...

I will make this a sticky...


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## JL-Exotics

I was doing some routine cleaning in my azureus viv this evening and had an observation that I thought relavent to this thread...

A few days ago, I fed some extra small phoenix worms to my azureus pair. I fed them from a small dish, that was empty at the end of the day so I honestly wasn't sure if they were eaten or just crawled into a dark corner somewhere. These were the last 20-30 worms from my first trial cup. 

While rinsing away a few stools this evening, I noticed there were several completely undigested phoenix worms in each of the stools. I'm talking - COMPLETELY undigested. In all, I saw at least 12 undigested worms in the 4 stools I examined.

It a good thing I dusted them or my frogs wouldn't have gotten ANY nutritional value from them at all!

This is a very dissapointing discovery, as I was pretty happy to have found a calcium rich, easy to keep, easy to feed diet supplement for occasional feeding.

Based upon this thread and my experience with the phoenix worms I don't think I'll be purchasing them again. 

On a positive note, I just discovered a nearby petstore routinely carries the tiniest little pin head crickets I've ever seen, not much bigger than a melano. and at $.99 a dozen I can pick-up a nice treat once or twice a week with just the loose change in my car console.

Neko121 - I sure hope your frogs survives! Please keep us updated.


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## Ed

snip "While rinsing away a few stools this evening, I noticed there were several completely undigested phoenix worms in each of the stools. I'm talking - COMPLETELY undigested. In all, I saw at least 12 undigested worms in the 4 stools I examined. "endsnip

What is often seen is the appearence of undigested waxworm, phoenix worm etc, but what is often seen is that the outside skin is in one piece giving the appearence of being digested but the contents of the invertebrate have been digested and absorbed. 


snip "On a positive note, I just discovered a nearby petstore routinely carries the tiniest little pin head crickets I've ever seen, not much bigger than a melano. and at $.99 a dozen I can pick-up a nice treat once or twice a week with just the loose change in my car console endsnip

If you aquire crickets from a pet store you need to feed them for at least 48 hours to ensure that they have replaced the lost fats, protiens and some minerals during transit. If they have them that small then they have been starved... 

The question I have about the worm is how long has neko had the frog and where it came from before he got the frog? 
While circumstances, implicate the phoenix worms, I am hesistant to to say for 100% without a identification that it is a phoenix worm. 

Ed


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## Guest

Wierd, I wanna keep my eye on this post.

I've fed meal worms to my Bombinas many times, and they never ate their way out. Though one of the toads decided it was never gonna eat mealworms again. Ofcourse it also decided it was *only* gonna eat crickets and fruit flies.


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## Darks!de

There is on way an eaten animal can "eat its way out" of the predator. Any worm eaten by a frog would die from the digestive enzymes and/or suffocation/drowning. Even if it did not, a worm would not realize that it must eat itself out, or that it even can. Thirdly, if a worm WAS eating it's way out of a frog, the frog would be acting very strangely from the pain, and would very quickely die from shock, internal bleeding, infection/cepsis. I don't see any other possibility other than this was some sort of parasite that grew underneath the frogs skin such as a bot fly larvae.

Luke


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## harpy

*Bot fly*

I am no expert, but I do have first-hand experience with the bot-fly (human). I can say with nearly 100% certainty that this is a bot-fly species that has used your frog as a host, and is emerging from its skin. 

While a little freaky and gross, it is unlikely that your frog will suffer any long-lasting ill-effects. 

I am sure that box turtles are frequent bot hosts, and while I do not know how common or uncommon for such a small amphibian to be a host, it seems reasonable to think they are at least occasional hosts.

When I hosted one after a trip to Brazil, I thought it was some type of bug/chigger bite. One day in the shower, the lesion started "moving" and I knew what it was. I was able to remove it with little discomfort, and it was healed pretty quickly.

Hope your frog makes out as well as I did !

Greg L.
Temperance, MI


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## trinacliff

Greg, OMG...I would have freaked out and thought I was dying if what I thought was a bug bite turned out to be a moving bot-fly larvae! That is so disgusting and scary...I'm glad I've heard of it now so at least I know.

Just how does this happen in humans?

Kristen


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## joshsfrogs

Neko, are you treating the sore? I would think there would be a strong chance of infection in our small glass boxes with a cut.

I'm with Kristen. I would scream like a little girl if what I thought was a chigger started moving under my skin. Just thinking about it makes me queezy (sp?)


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## harpy

Well, I travel to the neotropics occasionally (I am a birder), and in my reading up on potential issues in the places I like to visit, I ran into this, so I was not totally surprised. Lucky thing, because I too would have flipped had I not known of these rascals.

What happens is the bot fly will lay eggs somehow on the proboscis of a mosquito (in flight from what I gather). The mosquito bites a person (in this case, me), and deposits the egg of the bot-fly under the skin of the host. It hatches, and the host is none the wiser until it is ready to emerge. 

It looks like a regualr mosquito bite for a while, but does not really go away (thus, you tend to think of chiggers which tend to take longer to heal). It itches, and has a little pain, but not much.

Then one day, you look down, and your skin is moving. It is at this point that its emergence is imminent. It pokes its head out of your skin, you take some forceps and pull it out. It itches a little, but is not painful.

I put neosporin on the wound, and it scabbed over/healed in a couple days.

I have friends who have picked them up in Costa Rica, Panama and Venezuela and mine was from Brazil.

Of all the possible nasties in the remote places we visit, the bot-fly is easily one of the most benign.

Greg


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## Guest

YIKES! :shock: Maybe I'll rethink my future trip to SA....nevermind, I'm still goin.


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## Darks!de

Actually what happens with bot flies, is that the female bot fly intercepts a normal housefly/bottlenose fly in midair. It pins it down to the ground and lays several eggs on its abdomen. It then releases the fly. The fly, naturally attracted to areas where animals live, (food, dung etc.) lands on an animal. When the eggs sense heat, they hatch immediately in a fraction of a second and fall to the skin. The microscopic larvae then burrow into the skin and feed off of nutrients circulating through the organisms blood and tissue. After it is fully grown it will dig its way out of the skin and fall to the ground, ready to metamorphose into an adult bot fly. One thing that is pretty nasty about these guys is that they breath through a modified proboscis that functions as a snorkel. When the bot fly larvae must breathe, it sticks it's proboscis to the surface of the skin. Hence you can kill them/force them out, but covering the wound with vasoline.

Luke


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## JL-Exotics

Darks!de said:


> There is on way an eaten animal can "eat its way out" of the predator. Any worm eaten by a frog would die from the digestive enzymes and/or suffocation/drowning. Even if it did not, a worm would not realize that it must eat itself out, or that it even can. Thirdly, if a worm WAS eating it's way out of a frog, the frog would be acting very strangely from the pain, and would very quickely die from shock, internal bleeding, infection/cepsis. I don't see any other possibility other than this was some sort of parasite that grew underneath the frogs skin such as a bot fly larvae.
> 
> Luke


Never say never! 

Here's an interesting clip from the CDC website regarding living fly larvae surviving a pass through the human digestive system...



> Editorial Note: Myiasis is the infestation of live human and vertebrate animals with fly (dipterous) larvae, which, at least for a certain period, feed on dead or living tissue or ingested food of the host (1). *Intestinal myiasis *occurs when fly eggs or larvae previously deposited in food are ingested and survive in the gastrointestinal tract. Some infested patients have been asymptomatic; others have had abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea (2,3).
> 
> Many fly species are capable of producing intestinal myiasis. Of 28 cases reported in 1963, M. stabulans was responsible for 4 (14%) (4). M. stabulans are common houseflies, and the females frequently oviposit from 140-200 eggs on food or decaying matter. These develop through three larval stages before pupation. The larval development is temperature-dependent and requires 10-20 days (2).


How disgusting is that!?!?!

Darks!de - I too, am doubtful any insect could chew it's way through a frog. Surviving a trip through the digestive system is one thing... eating your way back out is entirely different. Bot fly is a much more plausible explanation. Perhaps some better pictures of the offending worm can be posted or shown to an entomologist for postive ID?? I have some connections at my local university that could possibly assist in the ID...

Too bad more details haven't been provided by the original poster...


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## kyle1745

Just an observation but it looks like the worm may have never left the frogs mouth. So may have never got to the stomach. It may have got stuck and then eat through the cheak of the frog.


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## Ed

Different bot flies have different methods of getting the larva onto the host species. Human botfly has also been documented using ticks... 
And from talking to a couple of friends that have had human botfly infections, vaseline doesn't always work and may not be the best option because if the maggot dies inside the tissue, a really nasty infection can result... Pulling them out can be difficult due to the hooks on the body that allows the maggot to resist being removed in this fashion. At least one of the people I know who had them tried to allow it to mature because there are very few examples of the adults in museum collections and are a valuable donation but the pain was so bad that the person couldn't take it (said it took him to his knees....). 


There are different forms of myasis depending on the different species of fly involved (such as screw worm infections in cattle). 

Some of the flies that parasitize herps will lay thier eggs/larva directly on the host. 
However at this time of year, botfly infections are unlikely unless the frog came from a warmer climate... 

Ed


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## JL-Exotics

> What is often seen is the appearence of undigested waxworm, phoenix worm etc, but what is often seen is that the outside skin is in one piece giving the appearence of being digested but the contents of the invertebrate have been digested and absorbed.


Closer inspection of one of the undigested worms revealed all internal goodies still intact. Bummer... Is anybody else feeding phoenix worms seeing similar results??



> If you aquire crickets from a pet store you need to feed them for at least 48 hours to ensure that they have replaced the lost fats, protiens and some minerals during transit. If they have them that small then they have been starved...


Thanks Ed, I wouldn't have know that. 

Fortunately, I did give them a chunk of gut load to keep them fed/hydrated, but only because I had already fed my frogs that day. 

Would that still be the case if they are raising them in-house??

Good tip, thank again!!


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## kyle1745

neko121,

Do you have the ability to get the worm tested to make sure it is a phoenix worm. I am concerned that we may be causing an unsubstantiated scare here as there is a chance this is not a phoenix worm.

I am removing the sticky on this post until more information on the worm can be posted.


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## audioandroid

kyle1745 said:


> Just an observation but it looks like the worm may have never left the frogs mouth. So may have never got to the stomach. It may have got stuck and then eat through the cheak of the frog.


i agree that seems the most likely. this is why i do pretty much exclusively FF. i know they're safe. dust them every day and you'll have healthy frogs. 2 days multi vit then a day of calcium. even crickets are more prone to harbor parasites. i use springtails for thumbs and thumb frogletts. but you can't go wrong w/ FF


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## AZDR_A

*Phoenix worm usage*

We have been feeding with the Phoenix worms since October, and selling them since January. I have nothing but good things to say about them. Since using them regularly (one a week for breeders) I have finally gotten some Terriblis and Vittatus tadpoles in the water!!!!! 

Over 14 months of research was put into the solider fly maggots before they were put on the market (two different dart frog breeders used them during that whole time). 

Thank you Kyle for pointing out that Neko121 should have whatever it was tested that came out of his frog. I don't think it's fair to point fingers without any scientific facts.


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## booboo

In all honesty, I myself have been completley scared away from Pheonix worms. Not only just this one incident, but also the undigested worms in the fecals are a little bit sketchy.

I have found myself wondering how on earth a masquito infected with bot fly eggs came all the way to america and by chance got inside nekos viv and infected his terribilis.
Amphibians are cold blooded, wouldnt it need some body heat for these bot fly eggs to hatch?

Unless this is WC (which i doubt) i doubt that it is a bot fly while the chances just dont seem to be there for a bot fly orginating in the tropics to get to the US


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## JL-Exotics

Bot fly are actually fairly common in the US (some species anyway), so it is possible for the frog to have come in contact with the bot fly eggs. Winter weather makes it a bit of a stretch... but still not impossible.


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## Dancing frogs

Back in november, I ordered some of the smallest ones...one appears to have survived in a froglet container...don't know what the worm was eating...but it looks just like the one in the pic.
I'm not real worried about them surviving in the digestive tract until further reports of that happening...urban legends have been around about nearly every kind of worm like feeder doing that.


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## Ed

Snip " have found myself wondering how on earth a masquito infected with bot fly eggs came all the way to america and by chance got inside nekos viv and infected his terribilis. 
Amphibians are cold blooded, wouldnt it need some body heat for these bot fly eggs to hatch? "

You are referring to human botfly. There are other species of botfly in the USA and for that matter other species of flies that parasitize amphibians. 


Ed


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## froglet

Well i am no expert at this but working in pet stores for 7 years you do get to notice some things. I dont know much about pheonix worms but i do know that Meal worms if anything like Pheonix should never be given to a reptile/amphibian. I have seen them chew through the skin or anonel and chams once digested.. Such a hard exterior makes them really hard to digest and its sayd that when feeding these guys always to make sure the heads are cut off.....


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## Guest

*How about NOT a Phoenix Worm sticking out of your frog!!!!!!*

Dr. Sheppard here, developer/producer of the Phoenix Worm. Amanda Sihler suggested that we visit this forum and after reading the posts, it seemed important to register and join the discussion. I apologize for the length of this response.

I believe that this is simply a case of mistaken identity and jumping to conclusions. Many hundreds of people have fed Phoenix Worms to their dart frogs in the past seven months, as well as many thousands that have been fed to numerous species of reptiles and amphibians, and there are NO other reports like this. We do get a lot of good feedback. Two different dart frog breeders also had good experiences in the 14 months before we began sales. The worm that came out of the dart frog was probably a parasite like the Batrachomyia sp. mentioned by JL-Exotics in his March 22 post.

Let me point out several things that make it unlikely if not impossible for this to have been a Phoenix Worm. Two and a half weeks to "chew out" (?)--way too long. If this were even possible, it would have happened in a day or two. The size of the worm pictured is about 1" if the forceps are 4" long, like mine. That's longer than even our large size Phoenix Worm which is 3/4" long and impossible for dart frogs to eat. The shape is also much thinner than a Phoenix Worm. Even small size Phoenix Worms are difficult for many darts to eat. Extra small Phoenix Worms were specially sized for dart frogs at the suggestion and with the guidance of breeders. Extra smalls are only 3/16" long, about a fifth the length of the worm shown. Neko121, what size Phoenix Worms did you feed your frog?

I'm sorry to hear of the unfortunate death of Neko121's female cobalt, but there is really no evidence to link her death to Phoenix Worms. Was there any kind of necropsy? He said Phoenix Worms were fed to a GROUP of cobalts, the rest of which we assume remained healthy. Is this the case? Did a worm eat through this female cobalt?

Anyway, there is a very good history on feeding Phoenix Worms. In fact, development began over five years ago. We worked intensively with dart frog breeders for 14 months prior to taking Phoenix Worms to market. Also, the larva shown in the photo is longer than any Phoenix Worm we sell and 5X bigger than an extra small Phoenix Worm, which is the size commonly fed to darts. It's most likely a parasitic larva. An authoritative identification would be useful.

Craig Sheppard, Ph.D.
Insect Science Resource


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## Ed

snip " but i do know that Meal worms if anything like Pheonix should never be given to a reptile/amphibian. I have seen them chew through the skin or anonel and chams once digested.. Such a hard exterior makes them really hard to digest and its sayd that when feeding these guys always to make sure the heads are cut off....." 

There is still some urban myth tied up in this issue here. If they are housed with the animal and there isn't any water or food for the mealworm they will try and predate on any sources of food and water in the enclosure if the animal cannot get away then they may cause lesions on the animal. 
The exterior doesn't make the mealworm hard to digest, the high chitin content has been implicated in gastric obstructions in some animals. 
Cutting the head off has to do with the old myth of the mealworm chewing thier way out of the consuming animal. 

Glad you could stop by and help deal with this issue Dr. Sheppard. 

Ed


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## Dendro Dave

i've fed both pheonix worms and small mealworms to my darts...well the ones that could/would take such large food...pheonix worms were smaller and taken more often...but neither have caused any trouble with my frogs. The only dart death i've had is one escaped auratus.


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## twisner

glad to see weve got a good detective on this board :roll:


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## defaced

Sarcasm?



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## elmoisfive

This has been a very interesting discussion. I think it is fair to say that Dr. Sheppard has provided some very good perspective around the development and testing of phoenix worms as feeders. I would like to thank him for taking the time to post his message on the board.

It is also clear that we do not have enough information to reach conclusions about cause and effect in regard to the health issues that started this thread. Further speculation in the absence of more data is probably not going to shed light on the problem.

Bill


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## kyle1745

Craig Sheppard, 

Thank you for taking the time to post on this topic. As already stated I agree we need more specific information on the worm that came out of this frog.


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## Guest

Thanks for the welcome and comments. I forgot to mention earlier that we would be happy to mail a brochure and a copy of the nutritional analysis of Phoenix Worms (conducted by an independent laboratory) to any board member who is interested. Send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Insect Science Resource
768 Brighton Road
Tifton, GA 31794

Craig Sheppard


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## kyle1745

Do you happen to have a digital copy? I would be more than willing to get it posted here with proper credit of course.


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## MSteele

I don’t know what else it could have been that came out of my frog. I did pull the worm out of the frog and it certainly looks like a phoenix worm to me. All I know is that this is a newly set-up tank (4 months) with 5 orange terribils. I have never put any thing else in the tank but flies. So I don’t know how this worm – if it’s not a phoenix worm got in the tank. And I certainly did not insert the worm in the frog. You can clearly see a worm sticking out of the frog in the picture and you can see the large lump on the back of the frog.
I only fed the phoenix worms to 2 frogs in my collection – thank god!!!
*Pair of cobalt’s*
*And the terribilis*
Results:
1.) My female cobalt was dead 2 days 
2.) Week or 2 latter I had a worm sticking out of a juvenile orange terribilis
**
I am not sure why my male cobalt did not show any effects – possible that he did not eat any since he is smaller. 
And the only conclusion I have for the teribilis is that worm became bigger in the tank and burrowed into the frog. the worm also could have became large inside the frog absorbing water? sort of like when a meal worm gets stuck in a water dish and dies and puffs up after being in the water for a long period of time? I would assume that if the worm came from the inside of the frog it would have killed the frog.
When I pulled the worm it was dead and had been dead for a while – it had a strong odor of rot.
I posted my cobalt’s death also - I am not sure that the worms killed her but all I know is that I had her for almost 5 yrs with no problems and she was the best producing frog that I had and after just a day of eating the worms she was ling around the tank not moving and a day latter she was dead with blood coming from her mouth. I am not for sure that the worms killed her but it does appear that it might have had something to do with it!
****
I still find to this day larva crawling up the glass of the 2 tanks that I put them in

I purchased the worms from the Hamburg PA show about a month ago.

I still have the container – I purchased the smallest worms but when I opened the container they were clearly larger then what was advertised on the lid. The reason I fed them only to the cobalt’s and terribilis is because the cobalt female was my biggest frog and terribilis will eat anything that they can fit in there mouths.

I am just glade that the orange terribilis is doing fine – I am currently in the process of getting the cobalt female replaced. 

What really sucks is that the cobalt female was producing about 6-8 eggs every 9 days. 
She was by far my best producing frog.


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## Ed

How long have you had the terriblis? If they came from somewhere else then the maggot could have come from the previous location. 

Is the cage ff proof? If it isn't then it is possible that there was an invader that came from outside. 

Without a necropsy, you cannot say that the death of the tinct was due to the worms. There are multiple potential deaths that can cause a sudden death of a frog. 

Ed


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## MSteele

i wish i still had the worm? i guess that would resolve this issue.


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## astrozombies

I feel I should say something here... We purchased our worms from the same person at a reptile show and I had a problem with a frog becoming ill after eating the worms and i disposed of mine as well. Not saying it is phoenix worms altogether, but the worm that came out of the frog was identical to a phoenix worm and the female cobalt started spitting blood after eating the worms, and I had a frog fall ill after eating them, something don't add up. Maybe it was just the batch the particular vendor had that was somehow contaminated. I have gotten the worms from Cindy before with no adverse effects. One other note, we purchased the small size and all of the worms were atleast twice the size stated on the container.


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## kyle1745

Is it possible these were meal worms marked as phx worms? This is sounding more like a case of a miss marked package. 

Anyone have a picture of a meal worm and a phx worm?


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## astrozombies

it wasn't a meal worm. i know that for sure as i have fed thousands of those to chameleons and there is not really that much of a comparison. but i believe it could have been a mispackaged product. like i said, i don't blame phoenix worms, more the vendor as we each also got 1000 boxes of "pinheads" that were freakin half ground crickets when we got hom with them


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## MSteele

i agree - im not balmeing the company that supplies the worms - its just strange.
i still have the container with live worms inside, if that helps. i can photo or what ever?


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## defaced

As for the length of the worm, I took the picture of the worm and transposed a coordinate system on top of the picture that is consistant with the 8.5x11 sheet of paper that the lid and worm sit on. I say it's a standard sheet of paper because you can clearly see the sports bracket showing through from the front. Using this system, and a simple ratio, I get the length of the worm to be .78" or in fractions: 3/4". Dr. Shepperd stated in his post that is about the maximum size the worm can get and is much too large for a Dart Frog to eat. Below is the picture with the coordinate system, the measurements used, and the math:

Sum all of the angles: 3.23+17.35+24.83=45.41

Setup a ratio of 45.41 degrees is equal to 11", so 3.23 degrees equals .78":

11/45.41 = x/3.23; x=.78










I am omitting the misallignment of the worm and the coordinates for the sake of simplistic analysis, but would expect the worm to be just a tiny bit longer had that been taken into account. With this omission I certify that my number is good to +/-.0625" (+/- 1/16").

-------------

I make this post because I really feel this thread has done an injustice to the Pheonix Worm and Dr. Shepperd's work because conclusions were drawn before facts were presented. I stared reading this thread with Dr. Shepperd's post, and thought at first the he was just here to cover his butt and do damage control. What I found upon reading his post is that the information presented in the two threads did not match up and that in reality Dr. Shepperd made some valid. I did my own digging and came up conclusions (hopfully to be added later) that echo what Dr. Shepperd said and what other's have said and have added new light as to the length of the worm that hopefully can present the information needed to bring this discussion back to life and finially find out what came from Neko's frog.



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## back2eight

Well, unless the color is wrong in that picture, then it doesn't look like a phoenix worm to me. They are white. I bought the extra small size, which has proven to be way too big for my darts. They are too small and slow moving for my tomato frogs, so I don't really know what to do with them at this time. I might take them to a local pet store and see if they will trade me for something. But here are two pictures of my phoenix worms.


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## MSteele

Oh my god. This has gone a bit too far. I think some people have way too much time on there hand.
I know what I pulled out of the frog. And it was not a meal worm and it was not a Bot-worm as mentioned in prior posts. I have kept darts for over 5 yrs and just because I don’t have a lot of posts on dendro doesn't mean that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
**
Also as I and astrozombie stated - we both got worms from the same vendor and they were marked small but they were larger then we thought. And I agree that these worms are too big for darts but if you have ever kept terribilis they will eat anything they can fit in there mouths- that is why I fed the worms to them and my cobalt female was huge, I thought she would have no problem with them.
It’s just odd that the only 2 tanks I put the worms in I had problems and astrozombie also had the same problem with the only frog he fed them too.
***
Im not looking to get anything out of this, *I was just posting to make people aware of a possible problem.* If you think im making this up and I implanted a phoenix worm in my frog just to pull it out, risk killing my frog, and post on dendroboard that’s fine, everyone has there own opinion.

i still have the container with live worms - does anyone want it?


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## Catfur

I am putting in my (short) $.02 and locking this thread. This has gone from a reasonable inquiry to what borders on a shouting match in no time at all. And, unfortunately, without either the corpse of the Cobalt to necropsy or the dead worm to positively ID there is little chance of a positive resolution of this matter. I would strongly encourage anyone who has any sort of problem in any way similar to this to preserve as much as possible (frog, foreign object, original food source, etc...) for definitive answers.

If anyone feels they have *pertinent* information to add to this debate, you PM one of the mods, and we will decide whether or not to add it.

Thank You,
Clayton


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