White spot on face? (marginated)

[Cat]

Hello!

I'm new to the site, and although I have had a look at a few forums for answers on various things, this is my first time posting in one!

I got my baby marginated tortoise in November. She's seven months old and her name is Chai . I'm aware she may not be a girl, but as she was incubated to be female and it is a very long time until I'll be able to tell I've just gone with that
Chai seems overall very healthy. She's active, has a really good appetite and seems to be growing at a reasonable rate. Despite this, I just can't stop myself worrying about her! I may just be overreacting, but I haven't seen this symptom anywhere else... She has a white spot on her face that takes up a whole scale on her left cheek. Having looked at pictures from the first day I got her, I can confirm that she did have it then and it has not developed recently. I think I might just be noticing it more now as she's starting to grow, but it has got bigger and today the scale covering it seemed to be peeling off and made it look very large and protruding from her face.

I took some photos before giving her a soak (which is why she's a bit dirty from burrowing!) just to show how it looked:

Since giving her a bath, I'm fairly confident that the flaking was just normal scale shedding, however I have only really noticed her shedding skin on her neck rather than face. Anyway, the excess skin did come off but the white spot does still look quite large. Any ideas? Could this be normal?

Thanks so much for any responses!
Cat

 

[Yvonne G]

It's hard to tell from the picture, but it really just looks like a bit of flakey skin. ????

If you're really worried about it, you can always take her to the vet. It's much easier for someone to diagnose when they see the animal in person rather than through pictures.

 

[Cat]

Thanks for replying!

After posting on here yesterday I picked her up and the white scale was flaking again, even though I'm sure the flaky bit on those two top photos had fallen off when she had her soak only a couple of hours earlier. This morning, two layers of skin are peeling off over the area. I know she's a reptile but that just seems like quite a quick rate to shed, especially on her head. It's as if the actual scale itself is white but the skin peeling off the top of it looks normal.

I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on it and if anything changes or her behaviour does, then I'll take her in. I just thought I'd take some pics and ask on here because it doesn't seem to be affecting her in any way other than the way it looks, so maybe it isn't really that much cause for concern at the moment

 

[sbwalker5]

Hi, I've found this thread after spotting a similar thing on my 8 month old marginated today..



It's just appeared today, he's acting normal and seems fine. It doesn't look like anything too bad, but it's the first 'health scare' I've had! Did this turn out to just be flaking skin? Or something that need attention/care?
Thanks

 

[jeffjeff]

i'm no expert so probably wrong. but could it be that a scale is missing and its the bone underneath that u can see underneath. the skin could have grown over the gap making it look like a white scale and that's whats peeling?

 

[sbwalker5]

Has anybody else seen this type of thing before?

 

[shellyshelly]

Hi All,

I've noticed a similar white spot on my Hermanns today.

Were you able to get to the bottom of it?

I'm wondering if its flakey skin/scales?