Hi Magnus, hi Listers, the symptoms that you describe sound like something I have encountered with Phelsuma two times up to now, but only on WC specimen. In one case two P. cepediana had this, and in another a P. serraticauda male. Of the three only one survived, but I have to add that I then had tried no treatment as I could not find out what it really was, and didn�t want to do some kind of cure blindly. It began with frequent shedding, and then under the new skin there were wet and dark areas of skin, which seemed to be infected or something. On one I tried to help the shedding, but that seemed worse - the old skin that sticked to the wet new skin was seemingly some kind of protection to dehydration or something. So I let the other animal with the old skin "glued" to it, and it survived longer - the P. serraticauda-male even survived this, but kept large scars on the infected areas that would never look normal again (see the attached picture ... the murky areas on the back).
I then sent a deceased cepediana to Dr. Hiller, whom some of you might remember from the Gecko Meetings in Germany - he is specialised on the skin of Phelsuma ... . He told me that it seemed to be caused by a bacterial infection of some kind, but couldn�t tell which kind as the animal was not "fresh" enough to cultivate and analyse the bacterial culture. As I have not had this again up to now I could not supply him (or some other vet) with fresh material ... so I would strongly suggest that you should take one of the animals to a vet and have a sample taken, so he can cultivate it and see which kind of bacteria (or fungi) it might be, and let him try which cure workes best on these cultures ... if 25 animals are involved, this should surely be worth the trouble. My animals were kept in the same room and close to other cages, without any other animals beeing infected than the new ones. But fungi and bacteria are known to be able to spread by air, so ... how many rooms have you available? :-( In general - in drier surroundings funghi will not thrieve, so perhaps keeping them drier might help? One last note - as I keep Poison Arrow Frogs as well, I know that with amphibians there is a very bad (and seemingly new) disease that infects the skin and is very dangerous ... perhaps it can affect Geckos as well? I am sure that somewhere in Hamm (or at a dealer�s shop) there have been some "Chytridiomykose"-infected animals - if you consider sending a live or freshly deceased and conservated (no alcohol!) specimen to a specialist, you might consider this adress: Institut f�r veterin�rmedizinische Betreuung niederer Wirbeltiere und Exoten Dr. F. Mutschmann, TA F. Hausemann, Dr. C. Gaedicke GbR Am Tierpark 64, 10319 Berlin, Telefon: 030/51067701 Fax: 030/51067702 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr. Mutschmann is not only able to help with frogs; he knows his ways with reptiles as well. Good luck, and keep us up to date Hartmut
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