Meet my old oooold Russian tort rescue, Mo

[biochemnerd808]

Since there are always so many cute pics of RT hatchlings on here, I thought it might be fun for some folks to see some pics of a truly ancient RT, Mo. He is estimated to be around 80, although nobody will ever know exactly how old he is.
I rescued him earlier this Summer - he was being kept in cedar shavings, without any heat or UVB, he had an eye infection, very overgrown beak and toenails, and he was horribly infested with worms.

A few months later, he still looks ancient as ever, but he is active and happily eats greens right out of my hand. He will get another beak trim soon.

His shell is almost completely black, and very shiny. It has some old shell rot (which I have treated), but his plastron is in surprisingly awesome shape. He has cataracts in both eyes, but sees enough to eat and get around just fine. Mo is 6 inches long, and weighs a whopping 560g (he lost 20g from the worm treatment) - he is one dense tort!

His skin looks dry, even though I just soaked him. The worms gave him a vitamin deficiency, so a lot of his scales were falling off, but his skin is starting to look much better now with proper food, good light and heat, and proper substrate.

The pic of Mo eating is from today. The others are from a couple of months ago.

 

[TortoiseBoy1999]

Awww, his face looks like a little Chaco tortoise!

 

[ascott]

What an absolutely lovely tort.....beautiful

 

[Moozillion]

So cool!!!

 

[Greek914]

he was being kept in cedar shavings, without any heat or UVB, he had an eye infection, very overgrown beak and toenails, and he was horribly infested with worms.

Maybe you discovered a new way to prevent pyramiding!

haha... He looks great for 80. Thank you for saving him.

 

[lynnedit]

What a great looking guy! His shell is so dark.

 

[Pokeymeg]

Do you know his back story at all?

 

[jtrux]

Wow, how did you conclude he was 80?

 

[yagyujubei]

I don't think he's nearly that old. There's too much definition on his shell. At that age, I would expect the shell to be worn completely smooth.

 

[biochemnerd808]

Wow, how did you conclude he was 80?

My tortoise rescue friend who has 30 years of experience gave me that estimate - of course it is just an estimate. I have a 30-year-old female, and my friend has a 50-year-old male RT, and a confirmed 110-year-old yellowfoot (she has a pic of his first owner holding him back in the 1890s!), and Mo looks younger than the really old one, but older than the 50-year-old. Mo's face looks very old, his shell is so dark and smooth, and he has cataracts. I have yet to see and RT with such a dark shell, but the shell does darken each year. He is also MUCH more heavy than the 50-year-old tort that is the same size (580g! very dense!), which makes sense since the shell does thicken over the years.

He might be younger - who knows, maybe he is like Benjamin Button and is aging backwards!

We will never know for sure, because we only know the past 2 years of his story (being kept in cedar shavings without any UV or heat by the previous owners). I'm not trying to make wild-and-crazy claims about age, the point of this post was just to contrast a senior tort with all the cute little hatchlings.

 

[the_bookish_tortoise]

What a lovely, little, old man. I hope my Russian lives that long. It sounds like you did a great job nursing him back to health. He's lucky to have you.

Also - a 110 year old yellowfoot! I'd love to see pictures (especially the picture with the original owner).

 

[furandscales]

Aw what a precious little guy! I love russian tortoises they are just amazing!

 

[shelloise]

What a cute little face. Wonderful for you both that you adopted him!

 

[biochemnerd808]

Thank you!

Below is a pic from our local tortoise picnic. You can see 2 sulcatas, 1 Russian (my female Timmy, who is a little more than 7 inches, to give you an idea for size), and then Crusty, the 110-year-old yellow foot. He is starting to lose his bright colors... I'll have to ask his owner if she can scan the old old pic.

What a lovely, little, old man. I hope my Russian lives that long. It sounds like you did a great job nursing him back to health. He's lucky to have you.

Also - a 110 year old yellowfoot! I'd love to see pictures (especially the picture with the original owner).

 

[Laura]

if they lived together, Im suprised he survived.. if he is full of worms, id definately be sure to have the other torts it came in contact with checked as well..

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and I didnt think they lived that long... 40-50 is more normal.. but there is alway the exceptions!

 

[biochemnerd808]

if they lived together, Im suprised he survived..

@Laura - errrrrr, who are you saying lived together?! The above pic of the sulcatas and the yellowfoot and the Russian is a quick snapshot we took at the local reptile rescue tortoise picnic. None of those torts live together. They didn't even get to interact, we put them together for the pic.

...and I didnt think they lived that long... 40-50 is more normal.. but there is alway the exceptions!

Yep.

if he is full of worms, id definately be sure to have the other torts it came in contact with checked as well...

Actually, when I treated Mo for worms, I also treated his table-mate Joe (they came from the same owner) who had a milder case. Also, just to be on the safe side, even though I completely quarantine my Roz and Timmy from the foster torts, I treated them as well. And, to be sure that Mo is wormless, we treated a second time, and I'm having a fecal sample run by the vet in two weeks.

If you would like to know more about my torts, @Laura, you are welcome to swing by my tortoise blog. The link is in my profile.

 

[jtrux]

Wow, i'm more and more impressed with YF's. I had no idea that got as big as they do.