Ask Me Help Desk - Little bugs on my cornsnake

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennystoyo3

Ok i have a cornsnake that i bought from a petco about a week ago and hes been acting really funny like he wont drink unless u put him by his water bowl and today i got him out and he has tiny black bugs on him i need to know how to go about this or do i need to take him somewhere also i have a balled python in another tank will whatever the cornsnake has get to my balled python?

They are mites. He needs to go back to Petco (which will probably do nothing and dispose of him) and probably ALL of their snakes are infested OR he needs to see a Vet. http://www.anapsid.org/mites.html

"A wild reptile is infested with mites and ticks but, being in its native environment and subject only to the rigors and stresses of an environment into which its species has adapted over millions of years, the ticks and mites present no problem. When a snake or lizard sheds its skin, it also sheds its mites and ticks. While it may eventually become host to another couple of mites or ticks, it isn't forced, as is a captive reptile, into contact with its own shed nor with the hundreds or thousands of mites replicating all through its enclosure and neighboring enclosures...and the carpet, drapes and any other cozy spot found by roving mites.

A captive reptile is under stress from the moment it is captured or boxed up for transport. The stresses and generally unsanitary conditions found in the pet trade are, in and of themselves, unhealthful for the animals involved. Add external parasites to the mix and you have animals who are further weakened. The mites may be tiny, so small that they may be easily overlooked, but they can be dangerous. Watch for them when you are at pet stores buying your reptile or supplies for your reptiles (wood products are favorite hiding places for these pests). Watch for them when you are at the homes of other reptile keepers. Watch for them when you are at reptile expos and swapmeets (most are no better than, and often worse than, pet stores in the way the animals may have been maintained). And watch for them when you handle animals at herp society meetings or when students bring in their own reptiles to share with the class."

Notice that if the snake has mites, so does your house. You need to keep the snakes apart (although it's possibly already too late). Your snake sounds sick. It needs treatment by a Vet.