Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought this sulcata tortoise a while ago and i've noticed its shell is different from normal sulcatas. Im pretty sure it IS a sulcata but i wanted to check. If it is a sulcata, why would its shell be so different? thanks for any info.

I saw one like that before. It kind of reminds me of a plastron. It will still grow normal. It's kind of like an interesting shell defect.

That is one of the oddest shells I've ever seen but the symetry is neat. I'll bet high temps was the cause here.

Needless to say it's neat and not normal but the tortoise can grow up just fine for sure. It's not a serious deformity.

>>I saw one like that before. It kind of reminds me of a plastron. It will still grow normal. It's kind of like an interesting shell defect.
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

I agree,.. just wanted to clarify that EJ probably meant that high temps "during incubation" may have been the cause. Proper husbandry is still key, but high temps will not cause any further deformation.

Other than missing 2 scutes along the top, it looks pretty good.
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Did you buy this, or did you incubate them yourself? The reason this happened is because the incubation tempertaure was not right.

When did you get it? Any idea who the breeder was? What state did you buy it in? I hatched one nearly IDENTICAL to that. It was the only baby to come out of that particular incubator with a shell defect. My former partner on Sulcata sold the baby when I only wanted it for display. I was going to keep it since the pattern was so crazy looking. Interesting.

Matt
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"Change what you cannot accept... do not accept what you can't change!"

Tod Ashley C.$.C.

i bought the tortoise about 8 months ago in california. it was at some chinese kinda swap meet kinda place. yea a bad place to buy reptiles haha. well there were other sulcata's that had normal shell's but the one i bought was cheaper so i just purchased it. does the different shell affect its health in any way?

That's a cool lookin' animal and the scute arrangement has nothing to do with it's general health.

>>i bought the tortoise about 8 months ago in california. it was at some chinese kinda swap meet kinda place. yea a bad place to buy reptiles haha. well there were other sulcata's that had normal shell's but the one i bought was cheaper so i just purchased it. does the different shell affect its health in any way?
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

then its alllll goooood