Lung worm (parasite) info

P

paris

Guest
here is what i found out about these guys, (Rhabdias-unknown species) here are some previous posts that refer to them in
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7/39804.html?1122161361
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/39851.html?1122143787
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/18024.html?1091126598

these are parasitic worms, they go through 4 stages and they are hermaphroditic -so even 1 can become a problem over time in captive conditions. these are called lung worms because adults are found in the lungs (read on about this)

infection can occur through penetration of the skin or through the mouth from eating eggs by proxy. the worms have both a parasitic and a fee living stage (this means they can live w/o the host)the life cycle goes as this -ingestion via the mouth of eggs, these go through the digestive tract and are passed out in the feces, these hatch out and make one of the 2 options for life styles, the free living one produces a 3rd stage-an infective adult, the other is an infective larvae. this life cycle can be as short as 2 days. the infective larval stage enters the animals body cavity by penetration of the skin (so the worms i saw in the body hadnt moved out of the lungs -but were moving towards them). larvae take a few days to move from the skin through the body cavity-aiming for the lungs, in this time the go from the 4th stage to that of a sub adult-the sub adults goal is the lungs-it is only there that they can reach the adult stage and produce eggs (this is why i only saw big eggy ones in the lungs-so the smaller dark ones i saw outside there were not a different species but immature worms). once they are there they deposit their eggs in the lungs-these are coughed up and enter the mouth to start the cycle.

superinfection is a very real threat in captive conditions, essentially if they sit in unclean conditions, like those with high numbers and not much in the way of sanitary methods(say dealers who just keep them in containers full of moss), this problem can snowball easily-at any given time they can have adults producing eggs in their lungs, sub adults in their body cavities, 3rd stages burrowing through their skin and 2nd stages passing out through the GI tract! in the wild the animals wouldnt be in areas of high concentrations of these parasites(which also must have some things that eat them in the wild)so this can happen in low numbers and not kill the host, but in shipping/supplier/new owner conditions with all the added stress this can become lethal quickly.

i will add a post to this thread on how to help prevent this
 
snip " essentially if they sit in unclean conditions"

Paris with Rhabdias it does not have to be unclean conditions to produce super infections. All it requires is that the substrate be left in the cage for a period of time. It is also possible to get super infections if the animal retains the feces long enough for the eggs to hatch at which point the infectious larva will burrow through the intestional wall and migrate to the lungs.

Ed
 
ok so how to prevent may be too ambitious a term, the correct approach may be how to limit infection. first is to hope the handlers you got them from kept them in good conditions, but even if not, the earlier you buy from a dealer-the less the chance they have had to become superinfected. anyone getting a large amount in should keep them in temporary containers with damp paper towles for substrate and change that daily or several times a day, shed skin and feces should be removed as soon as possible (i also rinse the newts when i chage their toweling), the temperature and humidity will affect the levels of parasites, unfortunately these animals do not like cool conditions, about 60 F is the lowest an adult in good health will tollerate w/o vomiting (this is from personal observations-dont fridge em!) i am keeping my last of the 8 adults at about 72 right now and she seems comfortable.

signs of worms:
worms and eggs in feces-you can examine them under a microscope and they arent usually in low numbers , esp if the host is super infected

ulcers, low weight, anemia (lethargy-hard to tell in unknown species what is normal-but if an animal cannot lift its head off the substrate that is a bad sign!) and 'failure to thrive' are signs to look for along with the evidence of worms in the feces. dewormers are used during quarantine, this is risky because those with high parasite loads can essentially die from dead worms inside them-its tricky at that point, often this program is combined with antibiotics if the host has become so weakened that a secondary bacterial infection has happened.

after 1 treatment you wait a while and re-treat to remove those that made it past the first treatment.
it does seem that tylotriton is very susseptable to this unfortunate condition-in the past i have had shanjings that might have had this, and in my book (amphibian medicine and captive husbandry) the ones they use to display this condition are shanjing, kweichows are also in this boat -and i found a surprisingly higher number of worms infecting the animals that looked robust than in those that looked bad off. i also have talaingensis but have not had a problem with them in these-i can think of a few reasons why: less likely to be big sellers so imported in smaller amount; less likely to eat in stressful conditions; odd enough to be bought by a few people early and not sit in dealers tanks for too long, kept in smaller temporary tanks in less crowded conditions because they are a different and arent mixed in with the more popular bulk species......just some ideas

anyways, i will post some more dissection pics later and comment on what i found-hopefully this info will come in handy to many and i am also contacting the dealer we got them from to at least let him know what has happened, yes he may be in it for the money, but its not profitable to have mass die offs and PO'd buyers, so i think he will take notice.

ps excuse the spelling errors, i dont have time to correct them
 
wow-i didnt know that ed! they didnt mention that in the book-so will feeding more often help reduce that possibility?
 
i do know of a bait tiger dealer that used to turn the tap water on low (or water in the main city is fine for them) and have a drain on the far side of the tank. it may be possible to set up a temp container that has a low water flow entering from one side and draining from the other so that they are constantly rinsed with parasite free water.....
 
is cloacic (sp/real word?)irrigation an option that one would also employ then ed? or perhaps oral flushing?

(Message edited by paris on July 24, 2005)
 
here are some pictures i took of eggs ready to hatch and hatchling worms-these were from mucous i collected from the mouth of a newly dead one, the mucous sat out for hours in a petri dish and dried, i rehydrated it to loosen it up so i could look at it under the scope and the worms in there were alive and hatching out, i had to put them into alcohol to stop the from wiggling so much so i could get somewhat clear pictures-they arent great but its the best i could do shooting the camera through the ocular piece of the microscope
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Typically the hatching of eggs is only seen in constipated animals. Given that at least one of the animals there lacked fat bodies, I would not consider feeding more due to the chance of refeeding syndrome.

Given the condition the majority of these animals arrive in the USA, I would not consider it appropriate to be performing cloacal washes or oral flushings to attempt to prevent constipation as the potential benefits to me are not outweighed by the risks to the animal unless your vet feels it is necessary.

Clearing Rhabdias infections is usually a long and involved process as the substrate needs to be changed daily and the cage disinfected (I use two cages so one is being disinfected while the animal occupies the other one) and in my experience, the vet needs to coordinate a long treatment regimen as even with a clear fecal (which may not be possible to tell if worms are being fed to the caudates) the animals cannot be considered clean as there may still be larva in transit in the tissues and not mature as of yet. I am aware of at least a couple of institutions that monitor/manage the infections in the adult animals and look to clear the infection from the larva/metamorphs.
The flow through system you describe is great for getting rid of wastes but unless there is enough water to basically flush the system pretty quickly, it really won't do much for a lot of parasites as there will be fecal build up in "dead spots" allowing for the eggs to hatch and the larva to infect the available hosts.

A possibility to consider is that healthy animals can support a larger population of the parasite than a less healthy animal.

I would strongly suspect that most of the damage in infecting the animals happens in the country of origin and not post importation as the collector in the field gathers them up and holds them (sometimes months) until the buyer arrives, the buyer then holds them until there are enough to send to the exporter, who holds them until the exporter gets a shipment together whereupon they go to the importer who then holds them and disseminates them into the trade. The length of time they are held on this end is very small when compared to the other end... So it is true that the longer they are in "transit" the more will die so getting them as soon as possible on this end is critical, I doubt that the speed in which you get them from the importer will have that much impact on the overall level of parasite infestation.

When Rhabdias is found in a collection, it can spread through out the collection very quickly unless proper sanitary/quarantine procedures are in place because of the free-living form of the worm.

Ed
 
ed you are a wonder! thanks...ok so a few more questions then....my vet suggested perhaps an annual/semi annual deworming treatment-like one would do for horses, then i told her of the range in size of the animals and she said i might just stick to treating those who dont seem to be doing as well as expected. she recommended a full tear down of existing set ups, and i will do that for the ones that are suspect (this has all happened recently but i will consider those from last years imports suspect)-but here is the issue we were pondering; parasites are normal in wild animals and they do well despite them (since its not profitable for most parasites to kill their hosts) she suggested more of a management program, but if these guys are the epitome of 'bad worms' how does one do that with a naturalistic set up? plants, soil and live food cant be sterilized on a routine basis and she said eggs can hide in plants, is this guy (worm) so bad that i will have to switch to minimalistic set ups for these guys. my preference is to set up a system that mimics the natural world and as long as bio load isnt out of balance with the set up, just to let the mini ecosystem take care of itself. you mention that superinfection can occur with this particular parasite even w/o poor sanitary conditions-and a woodland set up with a water body isnt exactly sanitary, what is one to do then? even if the animals were 100% free of these baddies, plants and food are risky cage mates. are these a common parasite that i have to worry about all the time? one key i used had origin specific species, and my limited understanding of these is that most are host specific (some preferring caudates over frogs, and also the reverse) are they able to be managed in naturalistic set ups?

much of this caudate stuff is still new to her and so any insight will help. my ones from last year arent as big as i would like, but they did ok-the talaingensis were shipped with them are absolutely fine as well as the shanjings that are very robust and even laying (dud though) eggs. these were presumably from the same field collectors that frank parsmans got his from-and his had them but didnt survive treatment mine survived but werent treated until recently....i have yet to do a fecal on my stable guys, i can get as far as knowing what an egg looks like, but i cannot differentiate them or their 2nd stage forms from other worms.

also-im not sure if its a wives tale , but i was told worms dont like garlic, have you heard anything like this? i saw on the net that some parasitic worms dont like certain anesthetics (the photo i saw was of a child on it with the worms exiting his nose and mouth), do these guys have any thing other than dewormers that the dont like?
 
snip "how does one do that with a naturalistic set up?"

You don't. These are very hard to manage with an enclosure that allows the free living form to keep breeding as they will produce infectious larva that will continue to infect the adults over and over again resulting in massive infections.

snip"plants, soil and live food cant be sterilized on a routine basis and she said eggs can hide in plants"

If this is a concern then use plant cuttings that are disinfected with a bleach solution (ala plant cloning protocols) and soil can be disinfected via heat or steam.
Live foods are always a risk and many worms contain huge nematode populations that are harmless to the amphibian but result in positive fecals. There are also occasionally problems with soil nematodes colonizing fecals resulting in positive fecal readings.

" is this guy (worm) so bad that i will have to switch to minimalistic set ups for these guys. my preference is to set up a system that mimics the natural world and as long as bio load isnt out of balance "

Heavy loads of this nematode genus are implicated in the deaths of cb marsupial frogs post transfer to a number of other institutions.

snip "water body isnt exactly sanitary, what is one to do then? even if the animals were 100% free of these baddies, plants and food are risky cage mates."

Due to their life cycle they are unlikely to be transmitted in live foods unless the food item had consumed/was in contaminated soil. Plants from infected cages will allow the transfer of the worm which is why this should not occur without disinfecting the plant material first.

snip" are these a common parasite that i have to worry about all the time? one key i used had origin specific species, and my limited understanding of these is that most are host specific (some preferring caudates over frogs, and also the reverse) are they able to be managed in naturalistic set ups?"

At least two institutions have populations of animals that are infected. These populations are managed via weekly fecal checks and when the load gets above a certain level the animals are wormed. The cages furnishings are tossed and the cages are disinfected. Other institutions place them into quarantine, stabilize the animals and begin a treatment regimen to eliminate the worms but in some cases this has taken more than a year. This genus has a lot of different species that have different host affinities (some species cause various larval migrans in people (but none of the amphibian varieties as far as I know). I would have to look further into host specificity but I was under the impression, that some of this was niche speciation and cross infectivity was not uncommon. (for example, I think people can get on the rat ones...).

snip "also-im not sure if its a wives tale , but i was told worms dont like garlic,"

I have also heard this but any dewormer can potentially cause problems by killing off large numbers of the parasite.

I would suggest having your vet contact the vets at NAIB, Detroit or ABG for how they deal with it...

Ed
 
thank you so much! i will contact them soon, i am going to have about 3-4 months off as i graduate soon and wont seek grad school till spring 2006
 
Hi Paris,
Your Vet will need to contact them. I would be extremely surprised if they share any medical information with a member of public even if they are conducting the research for thier vet.

Ed
 
Thanks to both of you for posting so much info on this subject. It is hard to find this type of in depth info anywhere. Keep up the good work please.
 
oh! btw-ed, ....ummm any chance these are something people who handle them have to personally worry about??
 
Hi Paris,
While at this time, the Rhabdias that infect newts are not known to infect people, I would suggest care when working with reptiles/amphibs as there is the chance for cross infection with a number of species (my asthma specialist has a pentastomid in a jar that he removed from a patient for a potential reptile example)(look up sparganosis for an amphibian one from handling/consuming dead amphibs.)

Ed
 
Hi Ed and Paris,

Maybe a small addition: I think that, for the hobbyist, a collection free from nematode infections is an illusion unless 1) only a small number of animals is kept 2) the animals are intensively monitored and 3) strict hygienic measures are taken (especially with new animals, which, unfortunately is only rarely done). In my personal collection, I consider all my animals infected with nematodes and I only treat those animals that are in suboptimal condition (or that have newly arrived). This being said, I have performed necropsies on tens of Tylototriton and, if untreated, I didn't find ANY that was not infected with Rhabdias sp. In my opinion, they are very well able to limit these infections IF the animals are in good health. At this moment, I systematically deworm any new Tylototriton (and not only the imported ones).
 
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