Koko the Dumeril's Boa - Deeply beloved, suddenly passed

[Kcl]

Thank you all for your condolences - I appreciate it. I am coming to terms with her passing as best as I can, and I believe the necropsy results show that it was nothing unintentionally caused by our care of her.

I plan on updating once the histopathology results return. I think there is still a relatively limited knowledge base on snake viruses in the hobby currently. Information on the cause of death of a snake that was showing basically no symptoms at the time of death may be useful.

I was surprised to hear from my vet that he sees approximately two cases of IBD per month and considers it as the most common snake virus as the consensus in this hobby seemed to me to currently be that it is relatively rare. For information - the vet is Dr. Robert Wagner. I feel he is highly qualified, but his credentials are freely available for anyone who is interested to take a look at to decide what kind of credence to give this (obviously second hand) information. He also stated that the incubation period is long.

I know my thoughts are still a bit scattered in these posts, but I know there are relatively few people getting full workups done by qualified exotics vets after snakes' passing and I wanted to get as much potentially useful information out there as I can before precision of memory becomes an issue. It might be a while before that becomes an issue, because the necropsy process was very distressing to watch and thus is painfully clear, but there is likely still value in getting it recorded.

[Kcl]

Oh, and as further information - histopathology sample was a swabbing of the brain tissue. I can't recall if there were any additional samples sent at the moment. All interior tissues and the head/brain were preserved and retained by the vet, I assume in the case of a need for further samples.