Fibro-epithelial growths of the skin in large marine turtles, Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus)

Abstract

Diseases of turtles have received but relatively little study up to the present time and not much is known about the benign or malignant tumors of these reptiles.In a report on the causes of deaths in the London Zoological Gardens, Plimmer (1912, 1913) reported two cases of such growths.Scott and Beattie (1927), referring to Plimmer's observation, state that one tumor was a glandular cancer of the stomach in an elephantine tortoise and that the second was a multi-nucleated tumor involving heart muscle of Sternothaerus niger, a fresh water turtle from the Cameroon area of West Africa.These authors point out that of six thousand reptiles of various kinds autopsied at the London Zoological Gardens, only two showed tumors as the cause of death.Pick and Poll (1903) described an adenomatous growth of the thyroid of the Brazilian fresh water turtle, Platemys geoffroyana ( Hydraspis geoffroyana) .This was a large mass measuring 6 x 4 x 2.5 cm., consisting of narrow cylindrical cells in small acinar arrangement with lumina containing granular material.In December, 1936, it came to our attention that one of the large marine turtles, Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus), of the New York Aquarium presented multiple warty growths of the skin.This turtle, shipped from Key West, Florida, two years previously, occupied a large harbor water tank with two others of the same species and with two large loggerhead turtles, Thalassochelys caretta (Linnaeus).None of the other four turtles exhibited papillomatous lesions, although an exposure to possible infection had existed for more than a year.The water supply of the tank is a continuous flow of harbor water, which is brackish and changes density with the change of tide.The turtle showing multiple warts weighed approximately one hundred and fifty pounds.Papillomata were distributed in the region over the dorsal part of the neck in both non-pigmented and pigmented areas and in the light gray or whitish areas of both axillae and both groins (Figs. 1 and2).There were in addition several small warty excrescences in the outer regions of the upper eyelids involving the conjunctivae.Tissues were