Early Examples of Pyramiding

[Beasty_Artemis]

I was wondering if members would post pics of young tortoises with pyramiding! Mild, to really bad. I really want to see examples of what bad care can do to a little tort. How early do they exhibit symptoms? How early can a tortoise look REALLY pyramided?

Every time I feel even remotely insecure about Artemis's shell development, my fears are put to rest by the pics I have been finding online. Girl is looking good, but by no means perfectly smooth...
But I really want to see what youngsters look like with the condition to have a more accurate idea of what to look for. Most pictures I have seen are adults....

 

[Alaskamike]

I have a few photos. I'll post , but they are not my photos , I got them of this forum or another as examples. So I apologize ahead of time if it offends anyone I posted their photo.

As you know , there are subtle signs that show very young in folded keratin layers. As the age there is a lifting of the center of shute as the new llayer hardens

The little Leopard above shows early signs of slight raised shutes.

 

[Alaskamike]

Here is another
This Sulcata has much more defined pyramiding, which , if not stopped will only get more pronounced over time.

 

[wellington]

Don't forget. There is much more to pay close attention too then just pyramiding. Diet, hydration and being allowed to exercise in a properly large enclosure and outside time at least when it's warm. In fact pyramiding is not always from bad care.
I have a leopard that will be two in November that I hatched out. From incubation to today it has hatched and lived in 80% humidity, closed chamber. S/he is not badly pyramided, but is not smooth either like one would expect with the humidity it has had. S/he has a varied diet, outside grazing time in summer and a large closed chamber for all other times. Not all pyramiding means unhealthy. At least in leopards, a short time of drier conditions can still cause the top scutes to not smooth out as I have learned with my very first leopard. Does that mean he's unhealthy? I don't think so. Knock on wood, never had a single problem with him.
Be sure all other aspects of the husbandry are correctly taken care of too, not just the pyramiding. part.

 

[Neal]

View attachment 216572 I have a few photos. I'll post , but they are not my photos , I got them of this forum or another as examples. So I apologize ahead of time if it offends anyone I posted their photo.

As you know , there are subtle signs that show very young in folded keratin layers. As the age there is a lifting of the center of shute as the new llayer hardens

The little Leopard above shows early signs of slight raised shutes.

This is my picture. It’s not the same tortoise in my avatar, but note the background similarities. I remember every tortoise I produce and sell, not the ones I wholesale out necessarily, but certainly the individuals. This one is no exception.

Because this is my photo, I feel I have an obligation to provide some context about this tortoise and what we’re looking at here. Before I go further, understand that I am not offended about this picture being shared. That would be silly as I have obviously taken no effort to water-mark the photo or protect it in some other way. Also, I am aware that this exact photo is shared on another website, so it’s likely that you assumed the photo originated from someone else.

What I do have a problem with here, and on the other website, is that this picture is being shared without any sort of context or background on this individual tortoise. Yes, this tortoise shows signs of pyramiding, but in both cases where this picture can be found, there is absolutely no mention as to how this tortoise was raised and why the tortoise might be displaying this sort of growth, leaving the reader to assume this tortoise received sub-standard or improper care. The OP of this thread was asking for examples of tortoises that were provided with bad care, but that is not what this picture shows. I know that’s a self-serving claim since I am the breeder, but this isn’t the first tortoise I raised or produced and I know what good care is. I hate to sound cocky, but I feel I needed to clearly distinguish the OP’s requests in this thread against the example provided.

General context: The tortoise in the picture hatched out and remained in an incubator for a few days, exposed to humidity consistently in the 80’s. When it was time to remove it from the incubator, it was placed in a closed chamber where it remained until it was sold. The temperature in the chamber was kept relatively high at no lower than 85f, and the humidity was never below 80% and probably averaged slightly higher than that. I monitor temperature and RH using several devices and am very careful that they are adequately calibrated, or otherwise reporting accurate information. This particular group was fed a lot of natural growing foods directly from its enclosure, Mazuri, cactus, other growing things and was only supplemented with grocery store goods irregularly. The group was soaked daily and was provided with sunlight in mild temperatures during the morning hours for short intervals of time. That is the care this tortoise received in general terms. If more information is needed that might help educate the readers of this discussion, please don’t hesitate to ask.

As to what may be the cause of the pyramiding displayed here, let me just copy and paste something I posted a couple of days ago:

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.

The above was extracted from this thread: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/new-pics-of-our-leopards.160228/

I understand that pyramiding is a problem that has plagued the captive bred populations of tortoises for a long time, but I feel there are still some things we do not understand completely, especially with respect to leopard tortoises. There were clutch-mates of this pictured tortoise that grew completely bowling ball smooth, and some that were more pyramided than the individual pictured. I continue to pursue logical reasons why this might be happening, but I don’t think I will ever know. I know it is not unique to my own clutches, nearly every other leopard tortoise breeder I know has made this same observation.

Many of us are deeply concerned with pyramiding and sharing with others our ideas on how to prevent it, but the solution is not so black and white in some leopard tortoises. I think that I am a friendly and very open minded guy, so don’t feel hesitant to engage in a discussion challenging that statement or the care I provide my tortoises. I just hope that any examples shared will be first hand examples or provided with an appropriate amount of context.

 

[Alaskamike]

@Neal. I'm glad you provided some nuance to the discussion. I was reacting to the OPs request of examples of mild pyramiding to bad.

I too have raised several leopards & experienced the variance under almost identical environments.

Of course , since as I pointed out they were not my torts or my photos , I could not know the history of these little ones.

I agree we still have much to learn about genetics & its interaction with environment

 

[the Turtle Shepherd]

Don't forget. There is much more to pay close attention too then just pyramiding. Diet, hydration and being allowed to exercise in a properly large enclosure and outside time at least when it's warm. In fact pyramiding is not always from bad care.
I have a leopard that will be two in November that I hatched out. From incubation to today it has hatched and lived in 80% humidity, closed chamber. S/he is not badly pyramided, but is not smooth either like one would expect with the humidity it has had. S/he has a varied diet, outside grazing time in summer and a large closed chamber for all other times. Not all pyramiding means unhealthy. At least in leopards, a short time of drier conditions can still cause the top scutes to not smooth out as I have learned with my very first leopard. Does that mean he's unhealthy? I don't think so. Knock on wood, never had a single problem with him.
Be sure all other aspects of the husbandry are correctly taken care of too, not just the pyramiding. part.

yes, i am still learning but my theory is the same, especially when it comes to large breeds that start off and stay in too long in small spaces. this came from watching my slider turn square after 7 years int he tank. freed him and there he went back to normal in a couple of years and grew crazy smooth and flared. my theory is this: when a large animal that grows much faster is placed into a small environment - it simply having no room to grow start to deform, like the ancient chinese shoe torture pretty much... while babies do need the security - the room too roam is important at all time. I am sorry but if you are planning on keeping your sulcata in an apartment they you better be ready to share the floor with it by the second year at all times to avoid the deformity just a personal experience