xray of gravel in gut and eggs

[lvstorts]

Hi all,
My 10 yr old, Rita, decided to eat some gravel. While I was at the vet with her I had Virginia x-rayed also because she digs 15 nest and lays nothing. I wanted to make sure she wasn't gravid. I thought the pics of the x-rays were interesting so I'm posting them for all to see.

Rita is under vet care and starting to pass the gravel and Virginia is still looking for the perfect spot.

 

[african cake queen]

very cool x rays. hope the will be okay.

 

[dmarcus]

Hope she finds the perfect spot and also passes all the gravel...

 

[ShadowRancher]

Love the x rays, hope your girls will be ok

 

[Redstrike]

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

I hope your girl lays and the gravel comes out as smooth as possible...ouch!

 

[Kvoigt]

good luck with both of them!!!! very cool xrays

 

[Carol S]

Hi all,
My 10 yr old, Rita, decided to eat some gravel. While I was at the vet with her I had Virginia x-rayed also because she digs 15 nest and lays nothing. I wanted to make sure she wasn't gravid. I thought the pics of the x-rays were interesting so I'm posting them for all to see.

Rita is under vet care and starting to pass the gravel and Virginia is still looking for the perfect spot.

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting.

 

[Madkins007]

I love tortoise x-rays!

On the left-hand one (Rita), she is facing right. The 'ghost circle' is an egg, and the white 'bits' are gravel, etc.

The vertebra, which are part of the shell, show up as a white line down the middle, and the shell is outlined in white since the angle of the shot means that it is looking down through a lot of bone. You can kind of see the broad, interconnected ribs coming off the spine.

The skull is amazingly pale- in most animals, it is nearly white because it is so dense. In many chelonians, it is a lot thinner than you would expect since they use the shell as the main defense. The two white shadowing things beside the neck are the shoulder blades.

The front limbs are out, the hind limbs are in and you can get an idea of how they fold together to fit in the tight space without too much pressure on the intestines, lungs, etc.

The anal opening of the shell is pretty interesting. From this angle, you can see how round it is, and how it is about the same size as the egg. This protects the hind-quarters from predators (like jaguars- see how thick the hind part of the shell is? That helps protect against strong jaws and big teeth), but allows reproduction. In males, instead of a circle, the opening is more of a wide slot so the tail can move a lot to reach the female's cloaca.

Virginia's x-ray shows much the same, with 4 eggs. I don't know what the white round shape on the left hind foot is- anyone else know?

So cool! Thanks for posting!

 

[DesertGrandma]

Those xrays are really interesting. Thanks for posting. The eggs look as big or bigger than the anal opening. Thanks too Mark for explaining it all to us.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Very interesting for sure. Hope she does ok. 15 nest is a lot!

 

[N2TORTS]

Very Interesting .....and wonderful insights , thanks for sharing!
Good luck on yer shelled buddies! ....

JD~

 

[lvstorts]

The round white shape on Virginia's foot is most likely because it was straight up and down when the x-ray was taken. She is missing a chunk of her foot, has no toes and messing some lower bones (she came that way, no idea what happened to her). Her feet are an inch in length different. Its probably a cartliadge build up showing up all white.

She's very picky about her nest areas. In the summer she has 1/3 of an acre to roam, all sorts of different soil consistencies and she still will dig 15 nest before she'l lay anything! When she needs to lay in the winter it's that much harder to accomodate her!