Question: on identifying High white Leopard

[Opal]

Hi everyone,
Can anyone tell me if these Leopards tortoises are high white/snow white leopard tortoises?
Mable, female I've had over 20 years. I rescued this beautiful male (Elmer) 3 years ago. He lived in a small tank all his life and was super white with pyramiding. Took awhile to acclimate him to the outdoors. No more tank for this guy!


Thanks in advance..

 

[Chasen]

You've revolutionized his world. Do you know how old Elmer is?

 

[wellington]

From my understanding of the "white" which in all the pictures, ads, etc, they are all the same thing just people naming them different. All were much smaller and of course whiter. However, always heard the so called white doesn't really stay white.
Whatever color they look pretty good. How big are they?

 

[Yvonne G]

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a white leopard, snow leopard, high white leopard, or any other name they give to the lighter colored ones.

It's just the individual tortoise's color. In your tortoise's case it's more than likely caused by living indoors with no actual sun for such a long time.

 

[mark1]

retarded pigment development in the carapace of turtles due to lack of natural sunlight has been shown to be a fact ………. substrate color they are raised on has been shown to influence carapace color also , i've seen it in clutch mates to an amazing degree , and as obvious as the color difference in carapace and skin , the lack of change in color to the plastron seemed just as obvious …. pattern and color has also been shown to be genetic due to the environment they have evolved in …………. I am sure there are genetically lighter variations of leopard tortoises as there are genetically different color variations of any turtle i'm familiar with ……..

 

[Opal]

I was thinking the same thing.
She is 16" long and he is 10" long. When I had him health checked, the Vet said, he was about 7-9 y.o.
It would take years before he would know what to do...
He's practicing all over, front, the sides, back and falls over.