On Tuesday, May 9, 2000 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-4, Donald L. Blanchard wrote:
I received the following letter via email, and thought that, if true, deserves to be passed on to the herping community. It is the first time I have heard of bearded dragons ingesting baby toads (I presume that is what they ate; the young man uses frog and toad interchangeably). The symptoms described are the same as reported previously for dragons ingesting fireflies: convulsions and death within 1 to 2 hours.
Has anyone else heard of a similar experience?
Donald L. Blanchard
WebMaster: Colorado Herpetological Society _______________________________________________________________________
My name is Frank ________ and until last night, I had 2 bearded dragons, Elliott and AL. I have a question that I desperately need an answer to if
I am to gain closure from the recent death of two of my closest friends.
I have had both dragons for almost 2 years and Elliott, the bigger of the
two dragons, was approx 1.5 feet in length, and AL was about 1 foot in length. I have always fed them crickets and mealworms, the kind that
Zoo-Med makes, in a can, every two days, lettuce and kale every day, and water 3 times a week. They seemed to be happy and healthy. I have built
for them their own enclosures for inside my home and one outside my home
for nicer days. Saturday they were both doing just fine. I had them
outside and they both were basking in the wonderful sunshine.
Sunday started out to be the same way. Wonderful weather and lots of sun. Well I was helping my mom trim some of her roses and I looked down and
there were a couple of little toads near their cages. I did not think anything of it; I mean I live in NY and frogs are a common thing. Well needless to say, one frog ventured too close to Al's enclosure and he ate
it. These little frogs were only about the size of a dime {~17 mm], not
very big at all. A couple of the other frogs bolted and jumped into Elliott's cage. He gobbled one of the unlucky frogs down. I still did not think anything about it; I mean I have seen them eat crickets that were
about the same size as these frogs.
Well it became cloudy and cooled down a little, so I decided to take the
boys in the house, back to their other homes. An hour later I went down to check on them and Elliott looked like he was convulsing. He kept "rubbing" his face on his hot rock and was just a limp as could be. After gasping
for air a few times he finally died. I didn't know what to think.
Needless to say, I was very distraught. Then I noticed AL going through
the same thing. I had to watch my dear friend die, what looked like, a
very painful death. I need to know what happened. Was it the frog they ate?? I can't help but think this is all my fault. Was there something I could have done to keep them from dying? I need to know so that I may get over this. I mean I know they are a bunch of lizards but they were more
than that to me. They were friends as well as family. They have been an integral part of my life for a while now and I need to know the what and
the why.
I tortured myself all night long and I still have no answers. Today I am going to bury them both, but a part of me doesn't want to let them go.
This is a very hard thing for me to do.
Any help and/or answers you can provide me would be most appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
Most sincerely,
Frank ________
Hi Frank my name is Tony. I live in ohio and had my dragon for a little over two years. He had always been healthy and seemed happy. My neighbor and i were always looking for crickets outside to give my dragon a free meal. Well i made the mistake of
catching what i assume was a "baby" toad. I knew that some frogs and toads are deadly in remote parts of the world but would have never guessed that anything harmful(even to a dragon) lived near by. Anyway i stupidly let my dragon eat the toad. No more
than an hour later sadly my dragon had died. Strangely my dragon didnt even ingest the toad. He bit the toad head first and spit him out. Long story short...the toad dosent have to be totally eaten for death to occur.
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