My baby's plastron doesn't look like Chris' picture

[Daniel Stephan]

Hey Chris, @HermanniChris

I recently purchased a Western Hermann's from Arizona tortoise compound. i assumed being a western he would grow up to look like the one in your member pic but now i'm not so sure. he was from Italy, Sardinia i think. i assumed any from Italy would have the vivid yellow and black bands but hes got much more brown. now it sounds like you have to get one from Sicily to have that. what do you think? here are a few pics, hes only like 50 days old so its hard to tell what he'll grow up to look like but well see.

 

[THBfriend]

i assumed being a western he would grow up to look like the one in your member pic but now i'm not so sure. he was from Italy, Sardinia i think. i assumed any from Italy would have the vivid yellow and black bands but hes got much more brown

You expect a 50-day-old hatchling to look like the adult tortoise in Chris' avatar? Seriously?
Give it time, it's normal that young ones have brown tones in their shell. Have you read this post?

 

[HermanniChris]

It's a pure western. Andy's adults mostly came from me and they are an Italian mix. We kept here only the genetically pure locality specific animals which we brought in from specific areas. Long Before we were able to do this we had a group of adults that were real westerns but they had mixed Italian blood. This means mom may have been Tuscan while dad could have been Calabrian for example. All this means is that your animal cannot be assigned to a particular strain or locale but it IS a western. Because the western Hermann's locales are significantly different (why we went so far to do DNA to prove certain points) this is why something as simple as mixing them can have confusing results. Also the reason it is not vividly colored yet is because it is very young. Most babies are not as vibrant as adults and the colors do not show until they put on size. Some babies are very vibrant and yes Sicily is a particular strain that is usually very colorful right out of the egg. But, for example, our Gargano strain from Apulia, Italy is by far the most pastel yellow group of animals I've ever laid eyes on (they give the highest yellow radiated tortoise a run for their money) yet the babies are almost BLACK! So you see, variation strikes again. Wait it out, I'm sure the color will pop in due time. After all, it's what the western Hermann's tortoise is known for.

 

[HermanniChris]

Also, a little trick...

Wet the tortoise down and hold it under the bright natural sun. You'll "see the future" in his shell coloration meaning you'll start to see yellow. That eventually takes over with highly contrasting jet black.

The one in my avatar is not Sicilian it's actually a surprisingly yellow Majorcan animal.

 

[Daniel Stephan]

of course not. clearly you didnt read my entire post. i said being from somewhere other than sicily will he "grow up" to look like the straight black and yellow ones. I made sure to buy one from italy since i have seen many from spain and other places that didnt have the look of the one in his pic, but after reading his post and sicily being an island i thought maybe he wouldnt end up as colorful.

 

[Daniel Stephan]

ok cool, thanks Chris that is good news. i wasnt worried if he was a western or not, jsut curious about his region. Hes adorable regardless of where he came from but i did want him to grow up to be a yellow and black one. thats why i picked westerns. Being that your came from different Italian regions means he probably will be.

 

[Daniel Stephan]

ive got one other question. how old do they need to be before you need to file their claws? mine's are already prettly long. ive got plenty rocks and a ruff water dish he climbs on but they dont seem to trim them down at all.

 

[HermanniChris]

All the locales whether it's Italy, France or Spain will be black and yellow as adults, it's just that some are typically more vibrant than others. For example, Tuscany, Italy and also Varoise, France will usually have a bit of an orange hue to the ground color while Sicily is almost a fluorescent yellow-green and Apulia is a pastel yellow. Balearic Island tortoises from Spain usually have more of a lemon yellow.

We never have nor ever will file our tortoises' nails. They should be a significant length to allow for proper scraping and digging. If you'd like to see some close ups of how an adult's nails should look I can post some for you.

 

[Daniel Stephan]

That's good to know. I swear i read somewhere that you sometimes need to file their claws down... Proves you cant believe everything you read on line. well i'm glad i asked. Also I just read on garden state tortoise that some Westerns from Sardinia can grow up to 8" is that true? Seems way larger than all the other locales. I live in Minnesota so he'll have to be inside most of the year. Another reason i got a western is because i read they are one of the smaller tortoise species. If he does get that big ill have to dedicate an entire room to his enclosure, which i don't want to do because i want to keep him on the upper level where i usually am.

 

[HermanniChris]

Right, some of the literature on the internet today and even in some books is absolutely bogus.

Yes Sardinia and Corsica can even push 9" which is even bigger than some easterns. Another reason why the island westerns may one day be classified as a new subspecies. But yours should top out at 6" max if it's female. We do know that some of those adults which produced yours had Tuscan blood in them which is a more typical sized locale.