Conjoined twins

[Northstar Herp]

This one was still unhatched four days after it's (their) clutchmate, so I decided to do some surgery, and quickly found out why it hadn't hatched yet. I wonder if they just weren't strong enough to break out of the egg, or if they just died. Either way, it's for the best. I don't think conjoined leopard geckos would last very long.

The wife is taking some better shots, since I finally have some reptiles that hold still for her, but here's one that I took right away. They're joined at the base of the throat down to just past the front legs. I might do a little postmortem to find out if they're internals are separate or not.

 

[robin]

i would contact sfgeckos he would be very interested in this.

if they are connected at the neck chances are they have all their own internals

 

[Northstar Herp]

I'll give them a PM later tonight. In a way, I'm pretty sad I didn't open it earlier. Maybe they would have survived... but how good a life could they have had, or how long, for that matter?

Anybody else ever had this happen? I know it's rare to have a two-headed snake, but what about leos?

 

[robin]

I'll give them a PM later tonight. In a way, I'm pretty sad I didn't open it earlier. Maybe they would have survived... but how good a life could they have had, or how long, for that matter?

Anybody else ever had this happen? I know it's rare to have a two-headed snake, but what about leos?

the reason why i say to contact jon is because i THINK if my memory serves me correct he hatched out conjoined twins once before.

 

[Syris71]

I was just looking thru some old post under "hatchling Care" and found a very interesting thread on this very subject.

http://geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=6415

 

[Northstar Herp]

I froze the poor little things, and will take them out soon to figure out if they shared organs, and take some good pics of that, but until then here are a couple my wife took.

 

[Anakan2]

Just out of curiosity, how did the egg look when you decided to open it?
Jen

 

[Northstar Herp]

It looked just like any other egg. I really thought I was just helping out a late bloomer til I saw two tails.

 

[thestack510]

Wow, that's odd.

 

[Northstar Herp]

Wow, that's odd.

What's odd, that it looked like a normal egg?

I wish I had taken a picture of it before I opened it, but I didn't. Ken, remember that I am still a noob and may have missed some subtle difference between the eggs, but it certainly wasn't drastically different in any way. It was right beside the other one until the first one hatched, and I didn't notice anything unusual.

 

[thestack510]

What's odd, that it looked like a normal egg?

Just the fact that they are conjoined. I'm not knocking you for being "a noob." We are all new to this at some point, and if you're done learning you must be dead. :main_laugh:

 

[Northstar Herp]

HA, I didn't think you were knocking me... I thought you were saying it was weird the egg didn't look different.

I think it's weird that the conjoined twins happened to me on my first breeding season. As far as I can tell, it hasn't happened that much.

 

[Adinar]

Aww, the poor hatchlings.

 

[Northstar Herp]

I don't mind, I froze them until I had some time, then I cut them apart to see if they shared organs and threw them away.

I felt bad for them too, but not as bad as if they had lived. What a crappy life that would have been.

 

[acpart]

so did they share organs?

Aliza

 

[Northstar Herp]

Eh, I don't know, but it sure didn't look like it. I'm a carpenter, and they were soooo little. It looked all they shared was skin. I thought I posted the pictures on here somewhere... here's the pics thread- http://geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=62694