Zombie Alligators/Paralysis/Lake Griffin-Florida

[jadrig]

Hey Guys,
I watched a special on Nat Geo Wild, Discovery Channel, titled Zombie Alligators.
It highlights an epidemic amongst a wild population of alligators within lake Griffin, Florida.
Alligators were showing signs of paralysis and neurological defects. Commonly crawling around shore with their hind limbs paralyzed...also, a lot of deaths among, seemingly healthy, adult/young adult alligators. I couldnt find any links, but I did not look very hard :biggrin:. It was a fantastic documentary and these circumstances might be directly linked to the cases in captive animals.
I dont want to give away the whole story...but its a great nutritional story.

 

[jadrig]

...Okay, so the alligators were having a lot of neurological problems,i.e. paralysis of hind legs, and it was attributed to a thiamine deficiency(vitamin B-1...i think:scratchhead:. There was a type of Shad that the alligators were eating...which naturally produce thiaminASE...a thiamine blocker.
I know that a lot of Uroplatus breeders, especially U.phantasticus, have had problems with their offspring losing function in their rear extremedies. Was wondering if there was possibly a Vit B1 (thiamine) deficiency involved with these instances.