New Pics of our leopards

[SoCal]

I haven't posted in a long time but here are some new pics of the trio.. I can't believe how big they have grown in a year..



Leppy( 1 year 6 mo)

I haven't been able to get the pyramiding to stop.

Shelly( 1 year 3 mo)


Pumba( 1 year 3 mo)


Shelly and Pumba are siblings and both are very outgoing. They come to me and eat out of my hand. Leppy is more shy.

 

[wellington]

Beauties. I bet the two out going ones are males and the other is female. Be sure to let us me know when they are old/large enough to be sexed.
I say this, because my two males are very out going and my two females are not.
My baby, which will be two in November is very out going and I'm going to guess it will too be a male even though I incubated for female.

 

[Ghazan]

Very nice leopards, i assume they were all raised together in similar habitats yet different shells (except for the siblings), more genetic factors?, interesting ...

 

[Neal]

Very very very nice.

I'm very curious about your trio. Looking through your old threads, I couldn't tell for sure, but I assume the 2nd and 3rd pictured tortoises are related? Number 1 is not related to either?

Have you been able to determine their sexes?

That 3rd one is absolutely incredible.

 

[William Lee Kohler]

Since no one else will say there is some terrible pyramiding happening on 2 of these. Some kind of husbandry needs to change.

 

[Neal]

Since no one else will say there is some terrible pyramiding happening on 2 of these. Some kind of husbandry needs to change.

Or perhaps nobody said anything about it because we took two minutes to look at the OP's history before making any assumptions about the care he's offering...If you would have done that, perhaps you would have seen that the first tortoise already had started to pyramid before the OP purchased it, or that his care is right about on par with what we would usually recommend here on TFO.

Some explanation here may help.

Depending on the severity of it, pyramiding is very difficult to correct in some leopard tortoises. I have seen plenty of examples of drastic changes in sulcatas, where a sulcata will have started life growing pyramided scutes, then when they are exposed to better conditions the new growth comes in completely smooth. It's a very dramatic change in their shell shape, like someone flicked on the (humidity) light switch and completely changed it's growth pattern. This same thing does NOT happen with leopard tortoises, in my observations and experience. Perhaps it is because leopards tend to be more domely shaped than sulcatas, but there will always be some gradual slopeing of the pyramided scutes. It is my guess that, even though SoCal has this tortoise in better conditions, the environment this tortoise was previously exposed to had set the pattern of growth.

Some leopard tortoises will have some "normal" pyramiding. By that, I mean that they will pyramid no matter how much humidity they are exposed to. It is nothing as severe as the tortoise in the first picture, but more like what you see in the second picture...maybe slightly less. It's hard to tell from that angle. I have tested this theory quite extensively, even is much as bumping up RH to about 90%. I continue to test this and am coming up with the same results. I have clutch mates that literally will grow side by side, exposed to the same exact environmental conditions, yet one will show some pyramiding and the other doesn't. As the pyramided siblings grow, the shells tend to naturally smooth out and by the time they have reached adult size, it's not quite so noticeable. To complicate this discussion further, I have raised some completely unrelated clutch-mates to my own, and every single one would grow completely smooth. I'm convinced there is some sort of genetic component to pyramiding in leopards, as another poster here suggested, and I suspect that is what we are observing between the 2nd and 3rd tortoises in this thread. The first is showing some "normal" pyramiding, whereas the 3rd is just about completely smooth. Perhaps there are some behavioral differences that led to this difference between the two, one spent more time in a humid hide than the other, but that doesn't seem logical to me if high humidity is maintained throughout the entire enclosure.

Just dabbling on the surface of this discussion, there's a lot more that could be explained and other factors to consider, but hopefully that provides some insight as to what might be going on here beyond the general assumptions made. I would be willing to bet that if SoCal had procured the first tortoise earlier in life, the pyramiding would not be extreme as it is. Even as it is, the overall shell shape is uniform, the rear end is not sunken in, and all that growth in just one year all provide evidence that this tortoise is healthy and has been given good care.

 

[Rt1jen]

Beautiful leopards! I certainly see why they are a favorite of many!

 

[Yvonne G]

Since no one else will say there is some terrible pyramiding happening on 2 of these. Some kind of husbandry needs to change.

I'm pretty sure you're joking. The OP mentioned that they aren't able to get the pyramiding to stop, meaning that it was like that when they got the tortoise.

 

[Theo.tortoise.lover.7]

Or perhaps nobody said anything about it because we took two minutes to look at the OP's history before making any assumptions about the care he's offering...If you would have done that, perhaps you would have seen that the first tortoise already had started to pyramid before the OP purchased it, or that his care is right about on par with what we would usually recommend here on TFO.

Some explanation here may help.

Depending on the severity of it, pyramiding is very difficult to correct in some leopard tortoises. I have seen plenty of examples of drastic changes in sulcatas, where a sulcata will have started life growing pyramided scutes, then when they are exposed to better conditions the new growth comes in completely smooth. It's a very dramatic change in their shell shape, like someone flicked on the (humidity) light switch and completely changed it's growth pattern. This same thing does NOT happen with leopard tortoises, in my observations and experience. Perhaps it is because leopards tend to be more domely shaped than sulcatas, but there will always be some gradual slopeing of the pyramided scutes. It is my guess that, even though SoCal has this tortoise in better conditions, the environment this tortoise was previously exposed to had set the pattern of growth.

Some leopard tortoises will have some "normal" pyramiding. By that, I mean that they will pyramid no matter how much humidity they are exposed to. It is nothing as severe as the tortoise in the first picture, but more like what you see in the second picture...maybe slightly less. It's hard to tell from that angle. I have tested this theory quite extensively, even is much as bumping up RH to about 90%. I continue to test this and am coming up with the same results. I have clutch mates that literally will grow side by side, exposed to the same exact environmental conditions, yet one will show some pyramiding and the other doesn't. As the pyramided siblings grow, the shells tend to naturally smooth out and by the time they have reached adult size, it's not quite so noticeable. To complicate this discussion further, I have raised some completely unrelated clutch-mates to my own, and every single one would grow completely smooth. I'm convinced there is some sort of genetic component to pyramiding in leopards, as another poster here suggested, and I suspect that is what we are observing between the 2nd and 3rd tortoises in this thread. The first is showing some "normal" pyramiding, whereas the 3rd is just about completely smooth. Perhaps there are some behavioral differences that led to this difference between the two, one spent more time in a humid hide than the other, but that doesn't seem logical to me if high humidity is maintained throughout the entire enclosure.

Just dabbling on the surface of this discussion, there's a lot more that could be explained and other factors to consider, but hopefully that provides some insight as to what might be going on here beyond the general assumptions made. I would be willing to bet that if SoCal had procured the first tortoise earlier in life, the pyramiding would not be extreme as it is. Even as it is, the overall shell shape is uniform, the rear end is not sunken in, and all that growth in just one year all provide evidence that this tortoise is healthy and has been given good care.

I agree. My baby leopard (the one in my bio pic), no matter what I do, still pyramids. He/she is almost a year old and nothing will change the pyramiding. It's not extreme, about the same as the second, possibly a little more. I found that when the humidity was lower, he/she was growing less. However, it is still very small to the pyramiding isn't super concerning. I have only raised two tortoises from a young age, a month and a year old. One has a perfectly smooth shell with no pyramiding, while the other has some. They were both raised the exact same. Its interesting to think about.

 

[Tom]

To add to what Neal and Theo have brought up:

I find that around 10-20% of stars, leopards and sulcatas will still show some mild pyramiding even in conditions that seem "ideal" to prevent it. In these cases it is only a minor cosmetic detail, if all else is otherwise good, like diet, hydration, UV and temperature. For every group of 10 babies I raise in the same enclosure eating the same foods and experiencing the same routine, at least one or two will show some mild pyramiding. One of my little male stars has what I'd call moderate pyramiding. I got him at 37 grams and he's live in my large closed chambers ever since with 80-95% humidity, and 100% humid hides, daily soaks, sun several times a week as babies, and nearly every day since they've all grown up. Because my climate is so dry and i like them to get lots of sunshine and exercise once they get beyond the baby stage, all of them show at least some mild pyramiding. Not one of them is "perfect". Same with my leopards. I have been able to raise some "perfect" sulcatas indoors, but even they get some rough growth lines once they move outside into my dry climate here.

SoCal, I agree with Neal's assessment that your tortoises look fantastic.

 

[Jbrez]

Nice leopards are so cool looking.

 

[Ghazan]

Do you know what species of leopard these are? All the same?