# Parasite help and opinions needed



## felicitedanes (May 2, 2005)

I just got a new azureus last week, he's in quarantine, was skinny when I got him and hasn't gained any weight since, despite being very lively and having a voracious appetite. His stools were large and loose, so I took a sample in to my vet school today. Unfortunately the herp specialist vet is out of the country at the moment. We looked at the sample in the exotics ward, then took it to parasit dept. for the specialists to look at it. We found a LOT of things, many unidentifiable to everyone. One large, live worm on 4x that was diagnosed as a non-parasitic annelid, probably from fly cultures or the environment. Several larvae that she thought were nematodes, a bunch of huge (slightly visible with naked eye on the slide) egg-shaped things with two feelers/appendages protruding from them that she said were fruit fly eggs (?), and the kicker, a ton of ova that she thinks are coccidia. I'm very unhappy about this, but I'm also somewhat skeptical because I looked at all the samples and you could see the 'coccidia' very large and quite clear on 10x magnification. Unfortunately we didn't study any herp-specific parasites in my parasit class, but I can't believe they'd be that much larger than canine and feline coccidia, would they?. Also, each egg had a ton of sporocysts inside (probably 6-8) and all the research we did said that Eimeria and Isospora and one other I'm unfamiliar with could be identified by having either two or four sporocysts in each egg. I found all of this same information in my reptile med textbook at home, and pictures of reptile coccidia at 40-100x oil immersion magnification, not 10x. Lastly, many of the possible coccidia were free-floating in the sample, but there were also these strange, spiky tubular structures (possibly worm segments?), each one crammed full of the same eggs that she thought were coccidia, which doesn't make much sense. So, I need some input. I came home with some topical ivermectin for the nematodes, but I decided to hold off on the coccidia since they weren't sure what to treat it with anyway and the pharmacy didn't have most of the drugs we were considering in a frog-safe form. I'm leaving for a week-long vacation in the morning, and the reptile vet will be back by the time I get home, so I told them I'd bring more samples in when I got back. So, I guess my questions are: has anyone seen anything like I described (sorry, no pictures, I know it's hard to visualize on a verbal description)? Anyone know of any dart frog coccidia pictures that I could compare to or any dart-specific books I could order that might have pictures and info? Should I go ahead and send a sample to Dr. Frye or someone comparable to get their opinion?

Thanks for any input anyone might have,
Felicite


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## felicitedanes (May 2, 2005)

That's not meant to be a smiley face in the middle of my last post. It was the number eight and a 'close parentheses'.


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## verbal (Sep 8, 2004)

Hey Felicite,
Welcome to the overwhelming and often times aggrivating world of dart frog parasites.
My first question is how is he housed now? Any soil, plants, etc. that could influence the fecals (i.e. soil-borne nematodes)? If so, put him on paper towels to make your life easier next time.
Secondly, While I've never seen any in an amphibian, my guess would be that coccidia of amphibians are of similar size to those of reptiles and those of mammals (i.e. very small).
Third, I don't think you could go wrong sending a fecal out to Dr. Frye. i would, however, make sure it's a "clean sample". Try putting him on moist paper towels. It's the easiest way to collect fresh feces.
Regarding your parasites, nematode larvae are rep[ortedly common. Getting down to a genus is difficult, but not that important in terms of reccommended therapeutics. I've never seen fruit fly eggs in a fecal, but I've seen some mites in older fecals that look like what you describe. The possible worm segements you describe are akin to tapeworms, which do occur but are reportedly less common in darts.
Lastly, let me know how the ivermectin treatment goes. What dose? Frequency? Route? I'm very interested to know.

Thanks, and hope this helps,
Ryan (cat and dog surgical resident in NYC)


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## felicitedanes (May 2, 2005)

Thanks for the reply Ryan. He is housed on damp paper towels now, with a thin layer of leca balls underneath to catch the runoff, plus a couple magnolia leaves and some pothos cuttings.
The 'fruit fly eggs' could very well have been mites, since we only saw them in the first fecal we did yesterday, which was older feces that I had collected over the last couple days. I brought in a fresh sample this morning, and we didn't see any of those. 
I would be much happier if the other eggs we saw were tapeworms. I considered that when we saw the segments stuffed full of eggs, but the parasitologist thought the segments looked like fruit fly parts or plant material, although it doesn't make much sense to me why either of those things would have eggs inside them? There were quite a few of them, and they all looked the same, long, cylindrical, spiky and full of eggs.
The amphibian dosage of ivermectin in the exotics formulary was 0.2 mg/kg, if I remember correctly, and he weighed 2.8 grams, so he's getting 6 mcg, diluted in distilled water to .12 mL, once today and again in two weeks, transdermally. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm hoping it will at least knock his parasite load down a bit so he'll stay alive until I get back from vacation and can really focus on this.
Thanks,
Felicite (2nd year, exotics/small animal emphasis)


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## rburnj (Aug 19, 2004)

The coccidia will be the same size and the ivermectin should work just fine. I use it as a second course treatment to fenbendazole and none of the darts have been negectively impacted by it. Just make sure your dosage calculations are right because ivermectin is very touchy and you can easily overdose. The only problem is when you dilute you tend to have a lot left over (unless you are using a micropipette and the volume will be less accordingly). You can pretty much dilute it in anything as well. For the most part I use sterile water and add some saline as well. 

Ryan


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