Help with a hingeback tortoise. Strange growth lines. See pics

Triciamarie1983

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Jul 11, 2019
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Hello all,

I am new to the forum. I own an 8-year-old, 65 pound Sulcata Tortoise named Peek-a-boo. But that isn't what this post is about. I have found you all due to coming up empty everywhere else I have looked. The pictured tortoise is at a local rescue I visited recently. I am a Vet Tech (I work with exotics but no reptiles) so she asked me if I had ever seen anything like this. I have never seen such strange growths before. Age is unknown gender is assumed Male. We live in central Iowa. This animal was surrendered in this condition. It can not close it's shell properly due to the strange growths. The growths are as hard as the shell itself and can not pick off. There are no soft parts of the shell at all. No bloodwork has been performed yet. It has been to a reptile vet who came up empty handed and I have utilized all vet forums at my disposal. Any ideas? Any help is much appreciated!

20190623_143707.jpg 20190623_143710.jpg 20190623_143713.jpg 20190623_143717.jpg 20190623_143719.jpg
 

MPappagallo

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Hello all,

I am new to the forum. I own an 8-year-old, 65 pound Sulcata Tortoise named Peek-a-boo. But that isn't what this post is about. I have found you all due to coming up empty everywhere else I have looked. The pictured tortoise is at a local rescue I visited recently. I am a Vet Tech (I work with exotics but no reptiles) so she asked me if I had ever seen anything like this. I have never seen such strange growths before. Age is unknown gender is assumed Male. We live in central Iowa. This animal was surrendered in this condition. It can not close it's shell properly due to the strange growths. The growths are as hard as the shell itself and can not pick off. There are no soft parts of the shell at all. No bloodwork has been performed yet. It has been to a reptile vet who came up empty handed and I have utilized all vet forums at my disposal. Any ideas? Any help is much appreciated!
Wow! I have never seen anything like that. It will be interesting to see if some of the experts on here can give you an idea of what it might be.
 

Yvonne G

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This poor thing more than likely has been in the care of someone who figured they had some sort of desert tortoise. It has been raised MUCH TOO DRY!!!! There's not much to be done about the raised, dry new growth, but with good and proper care from now on the new growth from this point will come in correctly. Eventually that raised, dry growth will rub off (hopefully). Let's hope he gets adopted by someone who knows how to care for a hingeback tortoise. I'm sending a shout-out to our hingeback members so we can find out what species it is and then we can point you in the right direction for a care sheet to be given to the person who adopts the animal.

@Jacqui @tortadise @Kapidolo Farms @Markw84 @juli11
 

Kapidolo Farms

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First, never go to that reptile vet again. Think how great vet tech you are for reaching deeper than your base knowledge, something that vet should have done, good job.

That is Kinixys homeana, a wet climate forest dwelling hingeback tortoise. It looks like it has not had a good wet hide or shallow water to soak in, while at the same time growing since it came into captivity, it is wild caught. Yes, that's a male.

The growth, aside from the very dryness of it, is normal, it as the name implies is a HINGE BACK tortoise. The back of the shell, if supple, would close down over the rear legs to avoid predation.

There are numerous good threads on care in this sub-forum, I'm not going to custom write one for you. But I suspect you'll have already dug into them, as curious as you have shown about the tortoise.
 

Bee62

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Poor tortoise ! Kept way too dry and with a heat lamp that burned the shell ( my guess ). Good you took him.
 

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