Necropsy pics

I don't normally post these kind of images in anywhere outside of my own journal, but perhaps some of this information may be beneficial to other keepers, or at the very least it will provide for some diversity among the regular posts.

These pictures are of a couple of necropsies I conducted of two juvenile king cobras (Ophiophagus hannah) and an adult red spitting cobra (Naja pallida).

The two juvenile O. hannah belonged to a dealer/keeper, who had acquired ten captive-bred hatchlings, which he was now force-feeding pinkie mice. After one such force-feeding session, he found five specimens dead the following day. My initial thought was that he force-fed prey items that were too large for the animals to handle, but he insisted that they had been able to digest the same size of prey previously. I took two of the specimens for a necropsy.



The necropsy of the two O. hannah confirmed that death was almost certainly caused by "pinkie overload". The pinkies were far too large for the snakes, and one was stuck in one of the specimens' throat, as it was clearly attempting to regurgitate it. Young snakes dying from being (force-) fed oversized prey items is not as rare as one might expect. I have seen similar cases in young vipers, which are not nearly as constrained with regard to body girth as a young elapid is. It is always better to feed smaller prey items, and not necessarily at shorter intervals, but that is another issue altogether.

The third specimen to undergo a necropsy was an adult breeder female red spitting cobra (Naja pallida). This animal had been part of my stock since it was a juvenile, and has been a productive and reliable breeder over the years. After he last clutch in 2006, she showed what appeared to be a widening of her reproductive tract. This seemed to be an artifact of gravidity involving a fairly large-sized clutch with very large eggs. She continued to feed well and behaved normally, until just a few weeks ago, when she suddenly developed a severe posterior spinal deformity. Usually, those types of deformities are caused by severe physical injuries, such as snakes being beaten or crushed by heavy objects. In this case, such an injury can be ruled out with confidence, except perhaps some bizarre and highly unlikely scenario of a self-inflicted injury involving her water container. The deformity and associated paralysis was progressive, and it seemed clear that there was no hope for this specimen. In fact, despite her ability to pass uric acids, it seemed risky to continue feeding her, as the passing of large amounts of feces could prove difficult, to say the least.

We euthanized the animal by lethal injection, and subsequently conducted a full necropsy. Even though the snake had not been fed in a couple of months, it had fat reserves that were more than adequate for gravidity. This was another good example of how conservative captive diets for reptiles should aim to be, in order to avoid vast accumulations of fat tissue and the associated reduced longevity.


The posterior spinal kinks looked even worse in vivo.




The abundance of fat tissue serves as a reminder that most captive reptiles are overfed, and suffer the associated decrease in longevity.


A ruptured kidney.


Abberant follicles. She may have been in the process of reabsorbing them.


Healthy follicles look much more dense and white-yellowish in coloration.

As usual, this necropsy was merely able to provide small cues regarding the cause of the deformity. At this point, it seems plausible that blood clots pinched nerves, which led to paralysis. We don't yet know specifically how the ruptured kidney and abberant follicles fit into this, but hopefully the histology will provide more clues to the puzzle. Both the kidney and the follicles have been sent in for sectioning.