Tegu Nosedive

Steiner · New Member Joined: Apr 20, 2006 Posts: 1

I have a young colombian tegu and today he took a dive off my chair(about a foot) it looked like he hit head first and was laying on his back. his eyes were moving but his head would flop back and forth and he would only crawl with his back legs. He seems back to normal now after a few minutes. What happened and should I be concerned?

tupinambis · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:35 pm Post subject:

Spinal cord injury, and yes you should be concerned. Hopefully, all that really happened would be that some of the motor ganglia got pinched and the animal recovered from it. However, there may be more to the damage than is evident. Tegus aren't climbers, and this is why. They don't land properly, usually either on their head or chest, causing their rear quarters to snap over backwards and causing spinal injury.

Nero557 · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 7:07 pm Post subject:

I would think you should go to the vet even if the tegu seems fine now... just to be on the safe side, mainly because of the laying on the back and head flopping that is probably a good indicator that something was either pinched, jammed, or injured in another way. good luck
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