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Question about "prehensile tail skink" & toes falling off

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Posted by icequeen on April 13, 2003 at 23:55:56:

Today I was at the pet shop...they have a LARGE prehesile tail skink there (is this also a Monkey tail skink, and the PTS I see people posting about?)
This poor fella was laying with his eyes shut, head hanging over the edge of his feeding bowl...along with one "hand" hanging over the edge as well...his hand consisted of STUMPS where his "fingers" and claws should be!!! This shocked me of course, so I squeezed in beside his enclosure to be able to see the rest of him...his other front foot was the same...just stubs. His back feet were each missing some toes and claw, two on one foot, three on the other. The last two inches of his tail also seemed darker and dry looking than the rest of him.
His colour is yellow, with just a touch of green in him. Also, the scales on top of his head seem crinkled...sort of like a raisin kind of texture.

Anyway...I spoke with the "reptile expert" of the store, and asked her about it. She informed me that the scales on his head are supposed to look like that. She also told me that his fingers and toes were like that because he is a wild caught reptile, and they come with all sorts of viruses and illnesses...and it just could of been from poor shipping conditions...I asked her if they were treating him for these various illnesses etc that they can come with...she told me "there's nothing we can do".

The point of my post is...what on earth would cause his toes to fall off like this...and is there anything that can be done for him. To me, he seems very unwell...but I don't know ANYTHING about skinks.
I just feel awful for him...and if I could I would take him home with me! At the same time, I don't want to encourage them to bring unhealthy animals in, hoping a "bleeding heart" like me will come in a rescue them!
Any comments would be most welcome...and I'm sorry for the length of this post...I just needed to try to separate fact from fiction.

Thanks...

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