Melissa
Kaplan's
Herp Care Collection
Last updated
January 1, 2014
Kinks and Bends in Tails
©2001 Melissa Kaplan
Kinks and bends in lizard tails may be congenital, appearing at birth/hatching or shortly thereafter, or may appear later as a result of some sort of change in the tail itself.
Congenital
Bends and Kinks
Congenital
kinks are not a problem. The position of the kink in the tail may appear
to move up the tail as the tail grows, but what is really happening is
that the tail is growing in length on either side of the kink. For example,
my Cyclura iguana, Mikey, hatched with a slight bend in the end of his
tail that bent it pointing up and slightly to the side. When I got him
when he was 6 in. SVL (17 in. STL), the kink was about 1/2 inch from the
tail tip. Now, at 41.5 in. STL, the bend is 4" from the end of his
tail.
Partial
Breaks and Lacerations
Many lizard
species have tails that autotomize (break
off) as a defense mechanism. In captivity, the breaks and drops may occur
as a result of an attack or perceived attack by a cagemate, another household
pet, or other animal. Breaks and drops may also occur when a human tries
to grab a fleeing lizard (or one deep in a hiding place with only the
tail in reach). Slamming the tail against a hard surface, or against the
edge of a shelf or other object, or getting it temporarily trapped in
something can also cause a break or drop.
Sometimes, the tail may break inside along a fracture plane but not detach and drop off. The result, when the area heals inside, may be a kink or bend or bump in the tail in that area.
Other times, as described in my Tail Loss And Breaks article, there may actually be a cut or tear through a significant amount of the skin and muscle tissue of the tail; there may or may not be an actual fracture in the tail vertebrae. If the owner gets the lizard to the vet right away, stitches to rejoin the laceration usually will save the tail; there may or may not be a slight bump there when the tail completely heals. However, if the laceration is not caught in time and enough of the blood supply is cut off from the distal (farthest from the head) end, the end will die from the lack of blood supply, shriveling up similar to what happens in cases of dry gangrene. Eventually, depending on how much tissue was initially severed, enough tissue will die so that only a small section of tissue and skin connects the dead or dying piece to the rest of the tail. If the connecting pieces is very small and fine, it will eventually break when the tail comes into contact with a hard surface.
If this happens, the new tail stump needs to be watched carefully to make sure that there is no infection in what is now the new tail tip. If, as a result of the tissue damage at the time of the initial injury, infection sets in, an abscess could form at the tip or dry gangrene could set in. This would result in a swelling, possibly oozing, area at or near the tail tip, or the process of dry gangrene, with the tail tip shrinking in on itself, becoming hard and brittle, with this process moving up the tail as the infection spreads. If an abscess or dry gangrene occur, the iguana must be taken to the vet to be treated appropriately. Otherwise, the local infection could spread into a systemic infection or, in the case of dry gangrene, continue undeterred up the tail, and along the way cause a systemic infection.
Note that in the case of some partial tail breaks, the tail "thinks" that part of the tail has broken off and so starts growing a new tail. But, since the original tail still exists and remains healthy, the lizard ends up with two tails - the original and the new one. While I don't have the reference handy, I do recall hearing or reading about one case where a lizard had three tails, the original and two new ones as a result of two different accidents involving the tail.
Acquired
Skeletal Deformities
As a result
of severe or prolonged metabolic bone disease,
many lizards end up with permanent deformities even after the MBD itself
has been successfully resolved. With MBD, bones may actually break, or
they may be bent by the force exerted on them by the pull of muscles attached
to them. If broken bones are not properly set, or the bent bones heal
quickly once proper calcium and environment is provided to the lizard,
there may be left a residual lump or bump in the bone that broke and knitted
crookedly or that remained bent during the period of time that missing
calcium was restored to the bone (see photo of Rugwort).
When this happens along the spinal and tail vertebrae, bends and kinks
may result.
Deformities may also be the result of traumatic accident. Adam Britton, a zoologist currently working for Wildlife Management International in Darwin, Australia, sent me a photo of a wild blue-tongue skink he examined. The skink had sometime previous suffered a traumatic spinal injury, but despite the dramatic deformity that resulted from it, was flourishing and so returned to the wild.
What
You Can Do
The bottom
line (or tail end, if you prefer) is that if you are new to lizards, or
new to lizards who can drop their tails, get tail injuries and oddities
checked out by your reptile vet. Infections, when they occur, can spread
with devastating speed...or may poke along slowly, spreading without your
realizing it, or stabilizing with the infection at the site but not spreading
systemically. Since captive lizards (all reptiles, for that matter) are
live in a state of chronic, albeit low levels of, stress, anything that
stresses or challenges the immune system can result in some sort of infection.
Best to be over-caution and get things checked out when you aren't sure,
than to end up with a lizard with no tail or, worse, no lizard at all.
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