Stargazing

Hi there. I'm hoping someone can explain stargazing 2 me? I briefly read in in a book but can't find anything else about it. Really worried that it may be affecting my snake. He seems to be tilting his head to the side a lot and isn't very lively recently. How would i figure out if it is that?
Thanks, i'm prob just being paranoid.

Stargazing is a neurologic condition that is apparantly caused by a recessive gene. Stargazers are apparent at birth and have great difficulty in crawling, often making awkward, exaggerated movements or crawling on their backs or crawling backwards. They tend to exhibit opisthotonus (lol, big word for the day) which is throwing the head back, like they're looking heaven-ward...hence "star-gazing".

To my knowledge, no one has submitted one of these hatchlings for any testing to discover the actual deficiency in these hatchlings causing the problem, but I am curious to know the results when they do.

It takes both parents carrying the gene to produce stargazers. The siblings in the clutch would all then have a 67% chance of carrying the gene. Test-crosses right now are the only way to identify carriers of the gene and this is helpful in trying to eliminate it from the gene pool.


This all being said, it doesn't sound like your snake is a stargazer, but if it's head-tilting constantly and seems out of balance, it sounds vestibular (balance center problem). I'd be worried about an inner ear or brain problem, a bacterial or viral problem being the most common cause. It sounds like your snake needs to see a qualified herp vet. Some additional causes include trauma, toxin, and many others.

Can't that be caused by the snake being in contact with one of the types of wood that released toxic resin? I thought I heard of that a long time ago.
You probably have nothing to worry about, but if you notice it getting worse, the first thing I would do (whenever it seems like a snake might be sick) is to get it into a clean, new container with just paper towels as substrate so that any enviromental problems would be removed. This would probably be just a big rubbermade tub, washed beforehand with hot water and a little bit of gentle antibacterial hand soap, then rinsed well with hot water. Then, get the snake to a herp vet, or consult the people here for more help .
That's just my thoughts. Good luck, I hope (and it probably is) nothing.

Thanks guys. I think i'm prob being paranoid but i'll keep an extra eye on him anyway. The advice was most helpful.
Cheers :cheers:

Hurley said:

To my knowledge, no one has submitted one of these hatchlings for any testing to discover the actual deficiency in these hatchlings causing the problem, but I am curious to know the results when they do.

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Hey Connie!

As you know, we have talked a little about this privately before. I'm curious as to whom one would submit a hatchling stargazer. I did end up getting 11 viable eggs from the pair that I have, that's know to throw them. I would expect to see hatchlings in a week or so.

To be frank, I'm hoping for the best and that I won't have any. But as far as research goes I'd really like to help out if I can.

Thanks,
Q

I honestly never heard of Stargazing in Corns.. Something I never figured I should worry about. I hear of it in BP's, but understand once they start Gazing there is very little that can be done for the animal..


Regards..

Same question as Pat, of course, Connie! Where do you send the poor little guy?

TandJ,

Actually I had never heard of it in BP's. Now boas is something different, I believe it's be plaguing boas for years.

It's not common in corns as far as I know. I have had some in my possesion though and I now have the parents that threw them. Zach (Shep151) has a couple of the "normal" offspring that appear (by test breedings this year) that they were carriers also.

We're only doing the breedings to find out more. None of the babies will hit the streets, at least not from my end.

It is a problem and we're trying to find out why.

Actually, it's pretty intriguing although a bit devastating as well. The parents have thrown some beautiful babies!

Q

If I hatched one, I'd probably send it to the diagnostic lab at the vet school in Florida, since they do a lot with reptiles there. Otherwise one of the university VDL's. They'd have more of an interest in finding out what it is than a commercial lab.

The important part with anything involving the nervous system is time. Within hours, the nervous system starts to liquify...it's mostly made of lipids (fats). Ideally, I'd send a stargazer live to them to euthanize and test immediately for best chances at a result.

Are you sure he's just not getting ready to shed? A lot of mine act weird and move in weird positions before shed, some get swollen under the neck, and make strage noises.

Quigs said:

We're only doing the breedings to find out more. None of the babies will hit the streets, at least not from my end.
Q

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Amen, brother! The offspring from mine will be distributed among those who are interested in accomplishing more research, or sold unsexed, as PETS ONLY, and the new owners fully informed of the reasoning.

Hurley said:

I'd probably send it to the diagnostic lab at the vet school in Florida

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Thanks Connie. Would you happen to have contact info for them. I'd like to get ahold of them and maybe set something up now. Then if I do hatch any out in a couple weeks, I can ship them off right away.

Also do you know if they will report back any findings? I would certainly be interested and I'm sure at least a few others around here would be as well.

One point of interest may be...

I had two last year that wouldn't eat at all and one that did finally eat very small live pinks. After a few meals, I decided it was rather silly to keep him alive. (This was of course before talking with anyone and realizing that there needed to be research done on them.) Even the two that refused to eat at all, lived approx. 2 months if IIRC.

I believe Connie stated this earlier, and I'd like to reiterate...

This condition is very evident right out of the egg and it's not something people really need to be all that concerned about. If, your snake wasn't doing this from the get go, "stargazing" in this sense is not going to creep up on you.

Although, if there was some sort of trauma or toxin it could lead to something like stargazing but I don't believe it's one in the same. Hopefully, we will have more information soon.

Zach,

I was thinking schools, nature type centers or otherwise any facility that might display the "normal" ones or use for education. As of right now I have three generations of these guys and the fourth on the way. I'm going to keep working with them and doing all I can to help resolve this, however at some point I will be very overwhelmed with possible hets. You can tell people not to breed this or that until you are blue in the face but some just won't listen. I know neither of us wants these out there and in the wrong hands, it could be pretty nasty. These certainly have no place in the open market!

Q

Quigs said:

This condition is very evident right out of the egg and it's not something people really need to be all that concerned about. If, your snake wasn't doing this from the get go, "stargazing" in this sense is not going to creep up on you.
Q

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This was not true with my case. The one hatchling that I had showed no symptoms until the second feeding (about 12 days old). The only "symptom" he showed up until then was refusing his first feeding, at which time I tease-fed him a pinky, which was very effective.
While removing his paper towel and water dish for the second feeding, he got flipped over a bit and went into somewhat of a corkscrew position. When I went to replace his lid, I noted that he had not relaxed this position at all. Rather, he was twitching a bit, kind of like when you have real bad shakes, like from Parkinsons or something.
I observed him doing this for a few minutes, waiting for him to recover. He didn't. Only when I picked him up did fear/panic/instinct take over and enable him to move, and it was still quite obviously hindered by these twitches. He did right himself in my hand, but it took extreme effort.
He didn't eat that night, and the little guy tied himself in a knot and died the day after I sent that email to Connie. Looked to me like he may have actually asphyxiated himself, he was tied so tight around the neck area.

Just figured I'd give a description of what I saw. This guy was a nephew to the ones Q described.

I'm just wondering if you guys have a different version of star-gazing than the ones from the sunkissed lines. Seems like you have a later onset. It may just be natural variation, of course, but there may also be two different genes, two different pathophysiological mechanisms / functional causes.

As for a number, I'll see what I can google here when I get more time.

I have never heard anything but boids showing stargazing...

Stargazing (encephalitis) is generally caused by temperatures in excess of 100 degrees for more than a few hours, viruses, tumors, trauma and amoebic protozoans...Almost every single case is caused by bacterial infection.

They should be taken to a vet and treated.

I have a lovely Central American Boa that started stargazing a few months after I got her, vet treated her with Baytril (I had to continue administering the medicine every day, twice a day for two months)...and now she's fine.

The ones that have been identified in corns happen at hatching or shortly thereafter, and it appears to be inherited like a simple-recessive trait: in the clutches where they have appeared, approx 25% of the clutch exhibits it and the rest of the clutch is normal. I think this pretty much rules out incubation temperatures as a culprit.

Under no circumstances were these hatchlings exposed to temperatures over 86.7 degrees, according to my min/max thermometer that monitors temps in the hatchling/incubation room. The probe was within a foot of that particular egg box, and in the same horizontal plane.
The particular spike above 85 came with an unexpected warm snap prior to the insulation improvements to the room. I also immediately lowered the thermostat for the room from 82-83 to 80 to allow more reaction time to avoid a repeat. The temp was over 85 for only a few hours.
There were at least 50 other eggs exposed to the same spike, 3 of those clutches within a week of the same clutch date, so effectively in a similar stage of development.
The likelihood of it being temperature related, as Serp said, is VERY slim, pretty much negligible.
If it were bacterial or viral, I would definitely have more than one. While I do protect from cross-contamination (washing and sanitizing hands between touching different snakes), I don't do so within the same clutch of hatchlings, so there were plenty of opportunities for the bacteria or virus to be spread within the clutch.
No clutchmates were affected, so it's also quite unlikely to be bacterial or viral.

I am providing you with accurate, veterinarian information on what causes "stargazing" in boids. The bacteria version infects the brain, and is not easily transmitable. No other boid in my collection (really, no other reptile) showed any symptoms.

Please do not get defensive.

Honestly, to prevent this believed to be genetic "stargazing," the animals should be humanely uthenized or given to some sort of educational program which would in no way shape or form breed them. Selling them to the public is only spreading the defect (if it is truely genetic).

I guess I missed the part where they got defensive. Looks to me like they were trying to explain why they felt that bacterial meningitis may not be the cause in these snakes.

"Star-gazing" (or opisthotonus) per se is not a disease, it's a symptom of many, many neurological conditions affecting the brain. Yes, it can be caused by infective encephalitis or meningitis (by bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa, and even potentially prions), trauma, metabolic disturbances, anatomic abnormalities, toxins, hypoxia, cold shock recovery, heat stroke, autoimmune disease, and many others.

Every species is obviously different, and in the star-gazing/sunkissed line of corns this same clinical sign does not appear to have the same "most common cause" as in boids, especially since these corns are affected at birth.

Star-gazing in corns was first described in some sunkissed animals as a condition present at birth, showing up from star-gazing producers and some progeny of star-gazing producers in an approximately 1:4 ratio. When a known carrier (who has produced star-gazers) is paired with an outcross, no star-gazers result. When a known carrier is paired with another known carrier, star-gazers do reliably result. Animals that are tested to a known carrier that are then crossed with other animals tested negative to a known carrier do not produce star-gazing progeny...all within the same lines of sunkissed.

I do not believe that all known carriers should be put down, this is a great loss of important information and takes away our best defense against a hidden gene that has serious consequences in its homozygous form. Not only do they make perfectly functional pets, but they are valuable as they are the only test we currently have to identify unknown carriers at this time. I do agree that carriers and potential carriers must be handled carefully and placed in non-breeding/pet/educational homes with a severe warning to the new owners of WHY the snake shouldn't be bred, but identified carriers are also important for screening lines that potentially carry the gene to clear snakes to be used as breeders to further the line without star-gazing.

I can't say that the snakes Quigs and Zach have carry the same abnormality that has been described with some sunkisseds as there is no known genetic link, but it is possible. The time of onset of signs don't quite match as the sunkissed line ones are severely affected out of the egg and apparently Q and Zach's line may take a few weeks to show signs. They are in the process of proving it genetic or not, which to me is quite valuable information and I'd hate to see the whole set of snakes mass euthanized. That's a lot of knowledge lost. The same is true of the sunkissed star-gazer carriers. We need to keep some around as test-crossers to test out possible carriers and determine which animals should not be sold or kept as breeders.

If star-gazing hatchlings are produced, I do feel it is important to try and identify the exact mechanism leading to the star-gazing behavior. What process is altered in them by what appears to be a simple recessive gene? Is it the loss of some essential enzyme? A congental malformation of the brain? A storage disease? What? Yes, we know the star-gaze, but why?

Sorry if it came off as defensive blckkat, it wasn't meant to be.
I'm just sharing the data that I have.
I'm certainly not trying to say you don't know what you're talking about with stargazing in boids. Frankly, I know no details about stargazing in boids, and would look at your data as refreshing, since the outlook for it a few months ago was bleak, from the little I had read on it.

Another thought:
I don't think I'm going to continue to research on this, since it relies on inbreeding to the point that it very well may be detrimental, in and of itself. (Which would also detract from the study)
The family "tree" goes like this (please correct me if I'm wrong, Q, this is from memory):

Original patriarch and matriarch (purchased at a show):
Normal het Amel, Motley/Stripe, Anery
Amel het Motley/Stripe and Anery
Given the shared genes between the two, they are probably siblings.

Then you have the offspring from those two.

And their offspring.

Any further breedings of this new generation could be the third (or more) generation of inbreeding. That's too much for me. I'm getting rid of the whole group. One of the adults will probably be going to someone who intends to cross it with a sunkissed line, the others will have to find trusted homes or be euthanized.