Recently, he's been basking a little more (but still not a lot) as he adjusts to his new privacy barrier. (I'm able to see him through a little eyehole I cut into the barrier). Needless to say, to avoid spooking him I try not to pick him up too often. This turned out to be my downfall, since I now have no idea when this happened:
Sorry I couldn't get the whole shell, but this was the farthest I could get without losing image precision. It looks like this down the middle of the plastron (as you can see, everything is fine horizontally). Again, I have no idea when this started, since I have been trying to let him live in peace. I literally spent hours poring through this forum as well as others, and haven't found anybody else with this exact issue--which deeply concerns me. I initially suspected excess swimming time was the culprit; however, there are people who hibernate their RES all winter, and their shells don't look like this come spring time...
A piece of potentially helpful information is that he is in the middle of a major shed (maybe I offered too much Wheat Germ?), and is still in the process of recovering from retained scutes he had when I got him.
As always, thanks for reading!
