Name
Current and Emerging Herpetofaunal Diseases, 2025
Speakers
Description
The 2025 installment of a lecture series started in 2021 to distill and summarize important emerging or newly characterized diseases in free-ranging and captive herpetofauna for the exotics clinician. In this lecture, one important disease of chelonians and two important diseases that can affect a variety of reptiles and amphibians will be covered, including testudines intranuclear coccidiosis (TINC), and entamoebiasis and chlamydiosis in reptiles and amphibians. Intranuclear coccidia is arguably one of the most important infectious diseases of tortoises and select other chelonians at present; it can present in a variety of ways, and the time course of clinical decline can vary from rapid mortality to long-term waxing and waning. Disease presentation, knowledge of susceptible host range, pathology, and diagnostics will be discussed. While Entamoeba infections in herpetofauna are many things, emerging they are not as they are a common occurrence in some species. However, our state of knowledge of Entamoeba diversity and susceptible host range is rapidly advancing. Many unique aspects of Entamoeba pathogenicity in different hosts can affect the clinical presentation and postmortem findings of infected herpetofauna, and those features will be discussed in this lecture. Lastly, Chlamydia infections can result in significant morbidity and mortality in captive herpetofauna, particularly in frogs and snakes, yet little attention is giving to this pathogen in most reviews of reptile and amphibian diseases. The tissue tropism (as it relates to potential clinical signs), postmortem findings, and diagnostics to consider as well as a discussion of important differential diagnoses will be discussed.
Session Type
Masterclass (1 Hr)