Wild caught Arizona elegans arenicola (Glossy Snake) from Hidalgo County Texas with SFD like symptoms
When I go herping I always wear gloves in between animals. My primary reason for doing so is to avoid transmitting diseases within and among herps. Many people are a bit confused as to why I do that. For one there is literature in Veterinary Medicine that confirms that Batrachochytrium dendrobatitis more commonly known as Bd, an amphibian disease, can be transferred to lizards. Quite a strange occurrence when diseases can pass the species barrier as typically they are specific to a group of animals.

However, more frequently I’m seeing a lot of snakes with symptoms of Snake Fungal Disease (SFD). I hear from collectors that back then they’d find milk snakes with lesions and basically they’d shed them off and be fine after a while. The question is, was it highly contagious among the rest of the person’s collection? I’m not sure how many people may have housed symptomatic snakes with others to confirm whether it was contagious or not. Now we know that SFD is highly contagious, and not to be mistaken with other conditions like water blisters.

If you’re out collecting in the field keep in mind the well-being of the rest of your collection whenever you do pick up an animal that shows SFD symptoms, as it is becoming more and more prevalent. The USGS states that for infected individuals the mortality rate in the wild is 100%. Other literature says >80% likelihood of mortality. Whatever the case may be, antibacterial between snakes may not work as this is a fungus, but the truth of the matter is that even if you do pick up a sick snake and bring it home, housing it in warmer temperatures and a dry enclosure will result in the snake likely shedding off the disease. The key being that you quarantine that snake from the rest of your collection, and that its lesions aren’t so bad that it refuses to eat, as many times the worst symptoms are around the face and chin, making it difficult for them to feed.

It requires a couple of tests to confirm the disease in an individual and we are finding it in more and more species than those initially reported by the USGS. We know it’s prevalent in Texas and is constantly being found in more species of snakes in the state, too. So continue to enjoy the field herping, but take the necessary precautions to keep your personal collection disease free.

Some things that might help are disinfecting your field equipment if you use it at home too, or having a separate set for your snake collection and one for the field. Also, if you see early signs in a snake remove the water bowl and keep the moisture level as low as you can in its enclosure. Offer the animal water every couple of days by replacing their water bowl for a few hours and then removing it again.