dropping tail Q

[squee_JTHM]

well last night my henkeli shed... this morning when i checked on him he had a wound at the base of his tail where they would drop it... i can tell he already dropped his tail once as it doesnt quite match up.. I put some ointment(silver sulfatediazine) on it as it was still open a little and he actually did pretty well with the handeling for that..

anyways i was wondering if he will eventually finish dropping his tail or if it just might heal? and if it does heal do you think he will have any peoblems like with circulation or anything?
ive had to deal with totally dropped tails in my other geckos but never where it started to drop but didnt fully drop so im not sure what to expect or really do about it besides keep an eye on it and make sure it doesnt get infected

 

[Scott F]

upon opening a fresh shipment of henks, i had one female who had a tail like you are describing. it was about half attached. after a couple of days she finally dropped the tail. on another note, i had a female grandis who had the same situation, but instead of dropping the tail, she regenerated a new one from the old tail where the half break occured...... after it was all healed, she had two tails. the new one branched off at a weird angle and was half the size as the original. uro tails are a little different, so i would guess it would either heal as is, or break off entirely. in either sittuation, i wouldnt do anything special for it. it will heal fine on its own if your husbandry is up to snuff.

 

[miguel camacho!]

it wasnt clear from your post...is it just a wound at the base of the tail, or does it seem as though the tail broke without severing?

 

[squee_JTHM]

sorry.. its like it started to sever but didnt go very far... i dunno heres a couple pics i just took... so you can tell me what you think.... it doesnt look very deep now since its sealed over but it was a bit deeper(or at least looked like it) when it was open.. oh and hes the only one in the tank

 

[HUNDO188]

it looks like the tail was a regen already..

 

[miguel camacho!]

... i can tell he already dropped his tail once as it doesnt quite match up..

this is complete speculation on my part, but it looks as though it was possibly some sort of incomplete break. it's hard to tell exactly what happened when you arent around when the break occurs. i had a female sikorae drop her tail for no apparent reason, and to this day i still have no idea why she dropped her tail. but anyway, though i am not experienced with it, and getting back into pure speculation, it seems as though the breakage might have been affected due to the old regeneration...since no actual bone grows back in the regenerated tail, it could maybe be possible that the breakage plane regenerated incompletely/improperly/however you wanna say it. but as was previously mentioned, it's possible you'll get a second regenerated tail out of the wound, which in the world of regenerated tails isnt all that rare of a case. a bit funky looking, but not a first. just dont be like the person on FC months back who listed a bunch of WC tokay geckos with double-tails for a few thousand dollars, saying something like "they had been bred that way."

thinking back on it, i hope no one was naive enough to buy those, and i really hope it was a joke.

 

[squee_JTHM]

it was an incomplete break.. i was hopeing it would heal and be ok but it didnt and he finally finished droping it last night.. oh well not much i could have done about it.... he looks funny without a tail though

 

[lessthantito]

I asked about leaftails regenerating their tails and a few people told me no that they don't which seems to not be true from what you guys say

 

[the moof]

lessthantito, it depends on the species. the smaller species, such as phantasticus and ebanaui cannot regenerate their tails, but the others, as far as i know, can. this includes guentheri, henkeli, sikorae, fimbriatus etc.

shame about that. i hope he regenerates it quickly for you. best of luck!

 

[livialeigh711]

Any update, Squee?


Olivia

 

[squee_JTHM]

yeah he did finally drop it but it seems to be healing well from what i can see.. hes still eating drinking and being his normal spazzy self when i try to take him out to check it... he looks so funny without it though >_<