BeWild Reptile Rescue

Moray is a 7 year old ball python who was surrendered this weekend. He is very small for his age and only about 900 grams. He has a retained eye cap on his left eye but is currently in shed, so hopefully will shed that off. In our experience, stunted snakes usually still get to full size once put on a proper feeding schedule.

Plankton is an adorably tiny crested gecko who is only 6 days old! Plankton is parthenogenic, so her mom laid eggs that were clones of herself. Her owner has never had a male crested gecko. This same gecko hatched parthenogenic babies a few years ago, who were also surrendered to BeWild, as the owner was not prepared for babies.

Plankton looks to be a healthy youngster and only weighs 1.7 grams! We will keep her until she’s 5-10 grams before putting her up for adoption.

Applications for our 2026 Fall Internships are now open! Please apply at https://bewildnc.org/support-us/.

Krill is a Peter’s rock agama that was surrendered to us on Wednesday. He was found in pallets shipped from Florida at a job site back in February. Rock agamas are an invasive species in Florida.

Krill is pretty emaciated with several abscesses and a necrotic tail. Bone is visible sticking out of the tail. He has an abscess on his left mandible and underneath his jaw.

We brought Krill to the clinic for x-rays and some bloodwork. The radiographs show osteomyelitis in the jaw, where the infection is eating away at his mandible. He is also anemic.

We’ve started Krill on fluids, syringe feeding, antibiotics, and pain medication. Hopefully we’ll be able to get him up to a good weight to consider surgery, as he will need part of the tail amputated and the other abscesses cleaned out. We are worried about his prognosis as these issues have been going on for a long time.

Pearl and Clam are two eastern box turtles who were surrendered last week. Their owner passed away and they were given to a family member, who was not prepared for long term care. We don’t have a lot of history on these turtles, but the previous owner had them for 20 years.

Pearl is a female and has bony prominences over her right tympanic membrane. While this looked like an aural abscess at first, the “swelling” is very hard and indicative of bony remodeling with a likely previous chronic aural abscess. We will be doing radiographs today to confirm.

Clam is a male and is a little more shy. He is missing a few of his marginal scutes but is otherwise in good shape.

We FINALLY adopted out our first bearded dragon in months, and filled that spot only a day later - unfortunately, we were NOT able to take in one of the many dragons that has been on our waitlist to come in for over a year.

This poor beardie was found abandoned in an apartment this weekend. When we told the finder we weren’t sure if we were going to have space, he immediately threatened to put him in the woods. Aside from the fact that animal abandonment is illegal, this dragon would have died if “set free” in the woods.

Jellyfish is an older male beardie who we are very concerned about. He has severely depressed cranial fat pads and a very prominent spine, shoulder blades, and pelvis. Despite this, his abdomen is full and rounded - this is why it is important to look at many aspects of the animal when determining body condition, as he is quite thin and muscle atrophied despite a “full” looking belly. It feels like Jellyfish has significant abdominal effusion, or fluid. We are concerned about liver and heart disease, both of which can cause fluid accumulation.

Jellyfish also had significant f***l staining, which took 3 baths and a toothbrush to fully clean. His femoral pores are impacted and he has a limited range of motion in his knees and elbows. His teeth are eroded, indicating he’s likely older, and he has healed broken ribs.

We started Jellyfish on subcutaneous fluids, liquid calcium, oral multivitamins, and a syringe feeding formula. He’ll go to the vet clinic on Thursday for bloodwork and imaging. We’ll continue with supportive care until diagnostics come back this week.

We really wish we could accept more beardies into the rescue—we have many more with medical issues who really need our help—but we can’t take any more beardies until the ones we have are adopted. Yes, many of our beardies have fairly minor chronic health issues. That is unfortunately the reality when we specialize in medical cases. However, the bearded dragons we currently have up for adoption are all vetted, stable, friendly, and have great quality of life. We just wish they could find forever homes.