A few months ago I bought a snake off MM and fortunately I kept it quarantined in another room from my other snakes. I noticed a mid-body bulge lasting longer than expected after feeding, but the snake did not regurge. Testing from VETDNA confirmed it was Crypto Serpentis. I have tested all my other snakes twice now and all are negative numerous weeks after I had the positive snake put down and destroyed the quarantine bin and all assocuated materials but had I not tested, the situation could have turned out very bad. Quarantine alone is not enough. The animals can appear relatively healthy and still shed this disease. You can be as thorough as you want with gloves and trying to prevent cross contaimination but all it takes is a few flies to land in the poop and they can spread it from bin to bin. The conclusion I have come to is 1) Quartantine as far away from other animals as possible. 2) Work in the quarantine area last and use means to prevent cross contamination, 3) Do not allow flies to persist. This is mostly an issue if you use a moist substrate then you’re going to need fly strips and mosquito bits. In the future, my quarantine bins will be gasket sealed boxes with fly proof screening (Window screen is not suitable, the holes are too big). 4) test all new arrivals several times and test them as soon as you can. Proceed to test several times and quarantine for as long as possible. Hopefully in my case it will be OK as I did not have any flies in the house (I use dry substrate) and always used gloves when servicing the quarantine bin last and with proper technique (look this up if you’ve not been training in how to properly remove gloves). This stuff is out there and people have it in their collections and are spreading it to others through MM, expos, etc. Quarantine and testing and having as few new animals come in as practical are your tools to reduce the risk.
I’m really sorry that happened 
But you have offered good advice for others to follow.
Did you ever contact the person you purchased the infected snake from about the issue?
I’m so sorry for the story behind the post.
I know there’s a number of crypto posts making the rounds on other social media. And there’s always a number of reptile shows this time of year which can increase exposure risks.
Even just casual handling of a snake thrust upon you at a show can be a risk. Personally, I try to avoid handling unless it’s an animal I am very interested in. I also am just wary of people who are that eager to take any animal you’re looking at and just take it out without being asked first. ^_^;;
It’s always good to have reminders. It’s easy to get lax and think it can’t happen to you. And even as you stated, a great qt may still not be enough.
I’ve been lucky for the moment, but it’s something that sometimes sticks in the back of my mind. It may be a matter of when, not if with C. Serpentes.
I don’t know the situation and breeder. If it was my animal I would definitely look into contacting the breeder to make them aware. I would maybe consider contacting support on MM with the test results just in case. That way there’s at least a record in case another user appears with another report.
I’m so sorry this happened. It’s a good reminder to all of us about the importance of quarantining with good biosecurity protocols, and to be extra observant for anything that looks even slightly off with a new arrival. It seems like on top of that, routine testing should really be more common practice than it is, because as I understand it, snakes with crypto can be asymptomatic while still being contagious. Scary stuff. Actually makes me kinda glad that I’m not planning on getting any new reptiles or attending any expos in the foreseeable future.
I did contact the person and can only hope that they will test their animals. Unfortunately, I did not see any of the sellers other ads disappear which makes me a little concerned. At this point, I don’t think taking in new animals is worth the risk for me. As I’ve asked around, I have found more and more people who have received crypto positive animals from various sellers. I believe based on those conversations a number of individuals are continuing to sell from infected collections. It’s hard to know if there’s more crypto the last couple of years or simply more testing being done than in the past. Personally, the number of people I’d be willing to buy from at this point is too close to zero to continue.
I know I’ve encountered a few ads on MM where the ad says that they test all their animals and will show the results to prospective buyers. I’ve seen a few others that offer to test animals at buyer’s expense before shipping the animal out. So there do seem to be at least a few sellers who will work with buyers to assure they’re not spreading anything. My hope is that that will become the norm…but I won’t hold my breath.
That’s an awful situation, I’m so sorry that this happened to you. It’s fortunate for the rest of your animals that you take biosecurity very seriously. I wish everybody did. Please do contact MM Support and inform them of this situation and your test results. This is something they will want to have on record. I am going to tag a couple folks. @brittni-admin, @eaglereptiles please chime in here. Thanks.
We definitely know more now because of more mainstream and fairly affordable testing.
As for the selling from collections…
This may be the case for maybe half of them.
The most difficult part of it is the fact that you can get false negatives a couple of times because an asymptomatic carrier just has a low viral load at testing. So even random tests on a handful of animals regularly can still give that sense of security until you happen to have an ill animal of the positive finally pops.
I tend to blacklist any sellers I see valid negative reviews on in cases of animal health. Repeat comments or reviews about animals with mites? Nope. Multiple issues of ‘shipping sickness’ is another red flag for me unless it is a species known for handling changes poorly. These make up a much smaller number of the possible infected collection, but are responsible for so many of them. And it’s especially unfortunate when the breeder is known for flipping and vending at shows because that can be so destructive to an unsuspecting attendee.
The other half is probably just the typical not really knowing what people have been dealing with. The hobby has been becoming more mainstream. With that comes a number of new owners who may not be as indepth as others. When an animal has an issue they can see a lot of outdated info online or people repeating the old ‘vets don’t know reptiles’ manta. Another is they are still seen as disposable pets for a lot of people. (I still see this happen with cats too, but much less often). They may have a young animal with complications and just get told that it was probably born with an issue and not get a necropsy or testing. Or poor husbandry for new animals leading to a bad QT, was the breeder truly at fault? Or do they have it in their own collection already?
Older types of tests were unfortunately very inaccurate. With DNA testing, it can detect very small amounts of oocysts. The number of occysts required for DNA testing is actually less than the amounts presented by asymptomatic carriers that could not be detected using stains. I read several papers on it to beter understand what I was looking at and even asymptomatic animals were still producing some oocysts, just not enough to be detected using older methods. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are deterred from testing thinking it might not be detected when if they are using DNA testing with a validated method, then the odds are very strong that even asymptomatic carriers would be detected. Basically, I look at it like this, by not testing you have nearly a 100% chance of missing it. Most animals do not show symptoms for a long time and by the time they do, you’ve gotten spores all over your house, your clothes, your washing machine, etc. If you test on that very first fecal and regularly afterwards, if you get a positive animal you will most likely catch it quickly and greatly reduce the risk. If combined with proper means to prevent cross contaimination and fly control, you can get that risk down much lower.