Water Dragon Drowned

[Whaa]

This morning was very sad for me and I was wondering if I anyone could help me find some answers.
This morning I found that the light for my water dragon was not on and so naturally I went and replaced teh globe. I could not see the water dragon but just asummed he was hiding so I looked around the enclosure and found him in his water bowl. I thought this was very strange comsidering it was not warm as teh light had not yet come on. I gave his tail a nudge but there was no reaction so I picked his up and found he was dead.
How could have this happened.
This was a baby water dragon no more than 5 months old. He was collected by Wires as an egg and hatched in Wires. This was then giving to me to take care of (my first Wires animal). He was in perfect health as far as I could tell. He was eating, basking and doing everything normally so why did he just die?
I have yet to call Stuart (The reptile co-ordinator of Wires who gave me the dragon to take care of) and tell him.
They always tell you at Wires not to be upset if a lot of the animals you recieve die but this water dragon was in perefect health. The only reason we had him was because he was too small to survive winter burmation.
Does anyone have any answers?

 

[pythonss]

water dragon

hi whaa.
really sorry to read your story. we do wild life rescue as well so know how you feel when you lose a animal thats in your care. while this isnt going to help you will experiance these feelings again but dont be detered by that.

there could be so many reason why this might have happened but a simalar sort of thing happened to a freind. it seemed as though his cage heating had failed, the water temp was higher that the air temp in the enclosure so the animal used the water to try and keep warm. sadly as the water cooled so did the animal to the point that it was unable to remove it self and also drowned. like i said that might be just one posibility.
keep your chin up whaa there will be lots of great experiances you will have with caring for wild life in need. nothing like being at the release of a animal back into the wild that you have spent the time getting to that point.
cheers paul.

 

[grahamh]

Sympathies Whaa

I have no additional ideas - what Paul said sounds very plausible yet I would never have though of it. Your loss may benefit many others through these pages.

rgds....Graham :cry:

 

[Guest]

That is the saddest story Ive heard.

 

[ad]

Sorry to hear of your water dragon's departure, they are such adept swimmers and mine used to sleep in their waterbowl over winter, its hard to believe they could actually drown, but I think what paul says is possible. Its one of those things that happen and nothing you could predict, it makes you feel like _ _ _ _ though!
Don't let it put you off caring for these injured reptiles.

 

[Whaa]

Ok here's the update...
This really freaked me out

After I found the lizard floating in the water bowl I carried the bowl down to the kitchen and lifted the completly limp lizard out and placed him on some paper towel so he could dry before I burried him. I left the kitchen and went into another room to do some work. An hour and a half later a came back to bury him. As I went to pick him up I could have sworn that he looked at me! I thought I was being stupid. I moved my finger around his head to see if he would follow my finger. He didn't. I dont know why but I just had a weird feeling about it. I them picked up the paper towel with him on it and placed him and the paper towel in a box to bury him. I dont know why but I couldn't shake this feeling that something wasn't right. I knew I was be9ing stupid but just to satisfy my conscience I gave the lizard a poke to check it was dead. Then I got the biggerst fright of my life when the lizard jumped up and atared running around the box. I couldn't even look at him I had to turn around take some deap breaths before I looked at him and then sure enough there he was sitting bolt upright.

If you ask me it's a miracle.

 

[Morelia_man]

very wierd story there whaa, but i am very pleased that this has happend, is he still going ok?

 

[Brodie]

OMG WHAA. That is awesome news bet it scared you to living h*ll out of you. EXCELLENT news though I must say........

 

[_popp_]

Thats great news,my beardies & water dragons can go into such a deep sleep that they can be picked up and appear dead & after poking n proding & freaking oout they open eyes & look at you with such a disgusted look.I have been fooled a few times & found a water spray gets there attention.

 

[africancichlidau]

LOL, good one mate good news indeed! Happened to me with my first missus too, last time I buy that brand of bullet

 

[sarahbell]

lucky thing you didnt bury it

 

[Magpie]

Have had this happen with rescued wild beardies. They lie there and you would swear they are dead, move them, spray them whatever, they don't move. Couple of hours later, they come back to life. I now know not to dispose of any dead lizards until they start to smell.....

 

[Alexahnder]

wow

 

[Guest]

OMG thatas freaky

 

[almaron]

I don't wanna be buried, in a pet cemetary...................

 

[Whaa]

thanks for all the support guys (and girls).
I'm still have trouble comming to terms with the fact that my dragons has been raised from the dead!
Any ideas for a nickname? I was thinking of Spirit but it doesn't sound like a dragons name.
Anyway, being the logical person I am I have been rationalising over this for a while now and have a question to ask.
How much does a dragon breath when they are hibernating?
My theory is that the night got so cold that he went into hibernation in his water bowl and hence he couldn't drown because he wasn't breathing???
Does that sound right to anyone? I know that turtles can hibernate underwater and they do not breath however they do absorb small amounts of oxygen through there skin?
Any comments?

 

[Magpie]

Reptiles can actually go some time with no oxygen going to their brain and still survive. This is why wildlife carers have so much trouble euthenasing them. I think it is between 1/2 hour to 2 hours depending on temp. So if he 'drowned' but was not underwater for longer than that, he might not have been 'dead' but would have been 'almost dead.' They do breathe when brumating, at a close to normal rate.

 

[Nicole]

Freaky stuff Whaa! I'm very glad to hear that it turns out he was the un-dead...
Some sort of vampyre name might just be in order...

 

[SnakeBabe]

I know from experience that water dragons will play dead when in fear and stay still until they feel it is safe to move again. Anything that they perceive as danger will keep them in this ?death like? state for hours. I have seen this in water dragons many times.

Glad to hear it worked out for the best. As for a name, how about Lazarus. A Bible dude who died and came back.
Hugs and Hissessss,
Maria

 

[Fangs]

Glad your not a funeral director Whaaa