Shell colour and pattern Horsfield’s Tortoise
How yellow or olive the shell is and how dark the blotching. This follows the population an animal came from, and it is not something anyone is selecting for.
How it is produced
- Where it comes from
- This is not a single gene. It is produced by choosing which animals to breed, over generations.
- What that means for breeding
- No offspring percentage can be given for it. Breeders judge it by looking at the parents.
Offspring odds
No numbers for this one.
Shell colour and pattern is produced by selective breeding over generations, not by a single gene, so no offspring percentage can be given for it. Breeders judge it by looking at the parents.
Worth knowing. No single-gene morph is established in this species. Russian tortoises are the most heavily traded tortoise in the world and a great many are wild-caught imports rather than captive-bred, which a buyer cannot tell by looking at the animal.
What this rests on
Established by breeders through repeated crosses and recorded in community documentation, not by published genetics. That is how almost all morph inheritance is known — and it is worth saying rather than presenting it as laboratory fact.