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Albino Eastern Box Turtle?

S

smart_ask

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I have a WC Adult eastern box turtle I believe to be some sort of morph. I have 9 other eastern box and ornate box turtles so I am familar with them but this is unlike any I have seen. It does appear to be an eastern box (shape and size are normal) but its color is what gets me. Its shell is a pale yellow/green/tan color with black markings (most are dark shell with colored markings). Its body color is very bright orange and maintains the normal red eyes. The bottom and the top of the shell are almost the same color. If anybody has an Idea what type turtle this might be please let me know. Working on another pic.
 

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Picture

Another try with the same camera... this is a normal eastern box and the unknown.
 

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Its not albino if it has tan on it. My guess would be leucistic. Definately one worth keeping for breeding projects as it is quite stunning from what I can tell on the picture. There were true albino easterns posted on Kingsnake.com's website under the Box turtle forum. Because it carries what would be called a dilution gene, if bred to an albino would produce normals in the first generation, and when these are bred together will come up with a small percentage of albinos, leucistics, and what would be termed a snow. That dilution gene would dilute the remaining yellow of an albino to produce an animal that appears solid white. Its a truly unique and valuable animal as far as color morphs go.
Mike Tankersley
 
I have seen several animals that closely resemble your animal while field herping in the past.
Eastern Boxes are highly variable in color and pattern. Extreme pattern differences can even be seen in animals from the same geographic location.
If you are interested I can send you pictures of several radically different animals that I photographed this past year all from the same 300 acre lot.
As far as albinos go, There are currently several animals that are known to exist. While they are certainly interesting their value is surprisingly low for such a rare mutation.
 
If you are ever interested in selling that animal, I know a guy that specializes in odd turtles whom would probably be interested in it. He would probably need some better photos of it, however, before he would commit to it.

If you are interested, I can put you in touch with him.
 
wierd turtle

web slave,
Please do put me in touch with your odd turtle dude if he breeds turtles. I'm dieing to see this one breed but not that interested in breeding turtles myself. I have some more pics will see if I can edit the ad to delete to old pics and insert the new ones (the old ones are really bad).
Respectfully
Stephen Kennedy
 
I concur with what Jackie said. I've caught several animals very similar to that myself out feild herping. They are not albinos and definitely not leucistic. I guess you could call them reduced pattern, but in my opinion they are nothing more than a beautiful normal variant in a highly variable species. If you want to try breeding for that trait that is an excellent idea to see if it's something that can be bred for.

I must say that yours is a very nice example of this variant. Any ideas on locality? The shell patterning and color reminds also of some of the three-toed box turtles out there.
 
Turtle

Maybe this turtle is just very old. I have a redfoot tort. that is around 60 years old and his color on the shell is faded to a tan color and even the color on his skin has faded to a grayish color
 
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