WTF? n.l.levis foot disappearance?

oli

oli

New member
Ok, so this is gonna sound weird, but trust me I am completely confused over this right here. I have a juvie n. l. levis that is only a few months old and is doing well. But, this morning when I was removing any uneaten crickets from her bin and doing some spot cleaning I noticed that one of her feet was missing! At first I thought it was under the sand just hidden, but nope all there is on one of her hind legs is a stump. She seems to walk fine on her stump, kinda like a pirate or something and she even eats fine. I'm just curious as to what exactly happened here? I thought maybe a cricket ate her foot, but I've never ever had anything like this happen and I only keep crickets in her enclosure for a maximum of 6 hours before removing them. I searched for her foot just in case she has leperacy and it just fell off (jk) and it was not in the bin. So I'm thinking maybe she just bit her foot off? I'm at a loss for ideas here, so I wanted to see if any of you guys could shed some light on what exactly went down here. I read some post a few months back where a leopard gecko was biting itself on the foot but didn't think anything of it and i don't think they came to any conclusion. Did my levis self amputate? Was something wrong with the foot, ie injury or infection that went un noticed and she decided to bite the thing off? :? Thanks for any help you guys can give me.
 
oli

oli

New member
no shed problems, no mites nothing like that? could it be some kind of neurological issue?
 
R

rhachic

New member
I suppose it could have been a deformed foot that appeared normal that it could have eaten off when shedding or something. I have seen deformed animals have fully formed feet that were not actually fully attached to the body (missing bone or not connected where they should be, so essentially just attached by skin). Sort of like when a gecko is polydactyl and the toe comes off from them pulling and eating the shed. I would think you would have noticed the difference between this kind of foot and a normal foot, but I understand levis babies can be touchy and it's not normal to handle the species anyway...quite the bizarre happening that's for sure. I highly doubt it would have been any kind of insect issue between you removing them within a reasonable amount of time and you probably would have found the foot or part of it. Plus it wouldn't have healed to be a normal stump so quickly. Guess you better start picking out pirate names :/
 
oli

oli

New member
Hmmm, interesting....I haven't really messed with this animal much as I just got her from a friend not even two weeks ago and have just been letting her do her thing by leaving her alone aside from feeding watering and cleaning. What you were saying is definitely a valid argument which I never thought of thanks for that
 
Slice of the Jungle

Slice of the Jungle

New member
I used to work at a large scale leopard gecko breeding facility, they kept bowls of mealworms in cages with breeding groups, on occasion a leopard gecko would go into the mealworm bowl and not come out. The mealworm bowl would be topped off and worms would not be changed out. Obviously some mealworms would end up hungry after being in the bowl for a while and on rare occasions possibly old or weak leopard geckos would go into it and get consumed. I'm not saying your crickets were starving and the responsible party, but just wanted to add this story of what I observed.
In regard to the possiblility of a dry shed, I have adopted a couple of "stumpy" geckos that must have had skin stuck on their feet for quite a while. They have gone on to thrive despite the stumps. Oli, when you introduced the crickets did you observe the limb and was it free of shed skin?
 
oli

oli

New member
Tim, I didn't observe the limb when I introduced the crickets as the gecko was in its hide and I try to be as DL as possible when feeding not to agitate the geckos so that they will eat good with as little disturbance as possible. I've heard and seen animals where crickets were left in the cages for days with and have seen bite marks and all that but this is the whole foot and I only fed 3 crickets, 2 of which the gecko ate. I'm pretty anal when it comes to the geckos and shedding so there was no shed which remained and could have completely constricted the foot. The gecko was fine when I cleaned it's bin 2 days prior. It is doing fine really and is using it's stump pretty well and even moves fast on it as I checked on her this morning. It is a very clean amputation, I was thinking of disinfecting it, but there's really not much to it and the wound is not really exposed. I was thinking of putting her on paper towels until it healed, but it may not even be necessary.
 
Riverside Reptiles

Riverside Reptiles

Administrator (HMFIC)
On a serious note, that is really odd. My guess would have been that it had retained shed on the foot and that it got painful enough that he bit the thing right off to relive the pain. But you already said that wasn't the case.
 
oli

oli

New member
yea it's a first but she is doing fine, eating and acting normally. It's actually pretty crazy how she's adapted.
 
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