death

[Filbert]

Has anyone experienced a tortoise of thiers bering stung by a scorpion or a bitten by a black widow? I believe thats what happened to one of my little guys the other day. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen with my own eyes. If you have ever experienced a black widow bite then you know what it can do to a human hand or foot but when a little tortoise is bitten its awful. My torts have been walking around my backyard and digging under bushes for months and nothing like this has happened. I have moved my other one back into his tank that he hates because I dont want to lose him too. I was wondering if there were any other tort accidents like this and if its safe to leave my bigger one in the backyard? I think Ill leave him in his tank from now on to be safe but he really hates it in there.

R.I.P Shells

 

[Yvonne G]

I'm so sorry about the death of your little tortoise. It would be a good idea for you to go over the pen on your hands and knees looking for dangers before you put the other one back outside. Move the rocks...look under the bushes...take apart the hide and make sure there aren't any places that would invite a black widow spider to hang out. I'm sure in the wild these kind of creatures inhabit the same space, but we have to do whatever we can to insure the safety of our pets. Again, I'm sorry about little Shells.

Yvonne

 

[Lil' Tortie]

I sympathize with you. My little Tiny-Tim passed away today too. He was the tiniest and weakest leopard tortoise out of the bunch. He measured 1.75" long and 1.5" wide. He has a very beautiful medium brown lining on each scutes. He is also "down-syndrome" due to a missing scute on each side (only 3 scutes on each side), but his scutes looked smooth and perfect. He was beautiful, wish I could show him off but haven't worked on desizing my photos yet.

LT

Has anyone experienced a tortoise of thiers bering stung by a scorpion or a bitten by a black widow? I believe thats what happened to one of my little guys the other day. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen with my own eyes. If you have ever experienced a black widow bite then you know what it can do to a human hand or foot but when a little tortoise is bitten its awful. My torts have been walking around my backyard and digging under bushes for months and nothing like this has happened. I have moved my other one back into his tank that he hates because I dont want to lose him too. I was wondering if there were any other tort accidents like this and if its safe to leave my bigger one in the backyard? I think Ill leave him in his tank from now on to be safe but he really hates it in there.

R.I.P Shells

 

[RTfanatic]

I'm guessing from your description the little guy suffered from necrosis. which would mean black widow more likely than scorpion. But for black widows keep an eye out for plastic in the yard. We've found a couple lately and they've been on a plastic flowerpot and a plastic toy bin (we've since tossed them). My exterminator said there's something about plastic like they, but don't know whether it stays cooler, or something.

FYI, the first black widow we found on the flowerpot had a big scorpion caught in it's web. At first I was going to thank the spider for killing a scorpion, but then I looked closely and noticed what kind of spider it was. Decided I could killer the scorpions myself...

 

[Crazy1]

Filbert and Lil' Tortie sorry to hear of your losses. I never thought about black widows killing a tort. I've been bitten on the thigh and that was pretty awful. I can only imagine a small tort. Now I will be out hunting the pens to make sure mine are safe. I know the loss of a shelled friend is horrible but passing on this type of information may save another. Thank you for that.
RTfanatic thanks for the info. I too have noticed more BW by the plastic pots in the yard. Hum, looks like I might have to do some replanting.