>A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a raised black blister looking thing on >a recently adopted male ferret of mine, on his body near his "underarm" >area. It was a little bigger than the diameter of a pencil, I guess. >I've been keeping an eye on it, and it eventually broke, and formed a >scab. Just recently, it's gotten much smaller, and appears to be healing. >I've never seen anything like this. Does anyone know what it could be? Boy, a picture of this would be helpful (always consider taking pictures - they are indeed worth a thousand words in the field of electronic consultation) - Chances are that we are dealing with a skin tumor here. Black blisters generally fall into one of two groups - vascular tumors or apocrine cysts. Vascular tumors (hemangiomas and hemangiosarcoma) are not uncommon in ferrets. The black color arises because the tumor is composed of proliferating vessels. I am actually currently working on a paper on these tumors in ferrets at the moment. They generally are benign, and even the malignant ones, the hemangiosarcomas, rarely metastasize, and carry a good prognosis after surgical removal. The other group, the apocrine cysts, are benign cysts of scent glands in ferrets. Surgery is also curative here. Many skin tumors get very ulcerated, may bleed, and go through cycles of looking awful, and then "healing", but they never really go away. My suggestion here is to have your vet remove it and send it off to see what it is. I would be happy to look at it for you at no charge, since it may fit in nicely with a little research I am doing right now. with kindest regards, Bruce Williams, DVM Bruce H. Williams, DVM, DACVP Chairman, AFIP Dept. of Telemedicine Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Washington, DC 20306-6000 (202) 782-2392 Ipsa scientia potestas est. [Posted in FML issue 3183]