When a coastal carpet python was brought into a wildlife hospital in South East Queensland in August 2024, vets were confronted with something they didn’t recognise. The python had damaged scales, crusted lesions across its body and a mysterious fungal infection that defied explanation.
When the results from skin tests came back, they revealed snake fungal disease, caused by Ophidiomyces ophidiicola, an emerging fungal pathogen linked to snake declines overseas. This was the first confirmed report in free-ranging wild Australian snakes.
In our new research, we detail this finding and two more novel fungal pathogens detected in skin samples taken from sick reptiles. All three infections produce disfiguring skin lesions. Two of the three new threats were not previously known to affect wild reptiles in Australia.
This isn’t a welcome discovery. Australia is home to an extraordinary diversity of reptiles – the highest of any country. But many species are in decline, due to climate change, habitat loss, invasive species and urbanisation.
Fungal infections aren’t usually a problem for warm-blooded animals, as most fungi can’t survive our high body temperatures. But for ectothermic (cold-blooded) reptiles and amphibians, fungi can pose a devastating threat. Chytrid fungus has triggered an ongoing wave of frog extinctions – including in Australia. We must protect reptiles from similar threats.
Snake fungal disease (Ophidiomyces ophidiicola) can be lethal. This wild coastal carpet python shows the disease’s characteristic brown crusted skin lesions and shedding issues.
Shelly Butcher, CC BY-NC-ND
What did we find?
We analysed skin samples from ten sick reptiles between April 2023 and September 2024. Each had mild to severe skin lesions. They included an eastern water dragon, two eastern bearded dragons, one eastern bandy-bandy snake, one white-crowned snake and five coastal carpet pythons.
In some cases, their infection was so severe it caused crusted lesions along the entire body, prevented normal skin shedding, and caused extreme emaciation and weakness. Tragically, many reptiles had deteriorated so badly that euthanasia was the most humane option.
When we tested skin samples from these sick reptiles, we found three fungal threats from the Onygenaceae family cropping up in new hosts or locations.
- Ophidiomyces ophidiicola – commonly known as snake fungal disease. We detected it for the first time in free-ranging Australian wildlife, causing debilitating disease in three native Australian snake species.
- Nannizziopsis barbatae – a pathogen already known to affect wild Australian lizards, and recently highlighted in water dragons in Queensland. We report its first global detection in a snake.
- Paranannizziopsis spp. – detected for the first time in free-ranging Australian wildlife, causing disease in eastern bearded dragons and coastal carpet pythons.
These skin lesions looked almost identical in a different coastal carpet python, but this time we found Nannizziopsis barbatae infection.
Shelly Butcher, » …