A cute tort.
Ive asked the owner for more photos and to track back as much history as possible.
Lovely pics and a beautiful tort.
Thank you everyone.What she has there is a tortoise who's shell has been worn down to the point where the underlying coloration of the carapace is showing through. Many older red and yellow-foot tortoise display this condition as they age--or as their shell gets worn down from plowing through vegetation, or dirt and rocks.
In most red-foot tortoise populations the actual underlying coloration of the carapace is yellow, with an outer layer of black pigment covering the yellow. The well known yellow central yellow spots (or squares, or areola) of a red-foot's carapace are more or less 'windows' that allow the yellow color to show through. As the shell ages and the black layers wear down, more of this yellow is exposed.
The tortoise in the photos above may not be that old per se, but may be living in a garden that has a lot of rough areas that the tortoise has been traversing over the years resulting in that look. It also appears to be a rather marbled individual that adds to the pale look.
The plastron falls within the normal parameters of what we call a 'cherry-head'. It's a little less pigmented than the usual example---but not much.
This is an old photo that shows Richard Cary Paull holding an adult male cherry-head that was imported from Brazil in the early 80's. He was maintained in a large outdoor enclosure that was lined with limestone rock and had numerous burrows dug into the rocky ground. The burrows were made by iguanas and some sulcata tortoises that shared the enclosure. You can see that his front toenails have been worn down and his shell is fairly abraded too. When wet, his shell appeared to be an overall dark tan color.
As a side note, this little male was an absolute pistol and would 'run' around his huge enclosure searching for girl cherry-heads, food or other male cherry-heads to fist-fight with. He would also approach his keeper to see what was up. A great little animal.
So your saying wear and tare would not be this uniform.
I think Carl's explanation makes sense. I have two girls that have similar plastrons and are more marbled. The black on their shell does seem "thinner" and the growth not a rigid. If my enclosure was more planted, I could see them looking like this. Their areolas are also not as well defined as the standard cherry.
Some fine looking torts there Alegra. That 1st ones plastron looks very similar to the one in question in this thread.
