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I've been trying to do research on various things related to Red-foots and found several references in recent papers to Red-foot sub-species- the 'Northern' (Chelonoidis carbonaria carbonaria) and 'Southern sub-species' (C. c. spps.)

Now- at the level of research I have access to, a lot of this stuff is screwy- personal ramblings, submitted but not peer acknowledged, etc. so...

Does anyone have any leads to articles or anything I can go to for information about this?

Heck, as long as we are on this topic- how would YOU divide the Red-foot (if at all?) Good names for the sub-species for bonus points!

Mine are boring-
- Northern- light plastron
- Southern Red (Brazilian)- dark plastron, red/reddish bulbous nose
- Southern Yellow (Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia)- dark plastron, Northern coloration, often reported as larger than normal.

Can you imagine a more unimaginative name than 'Southern Red Red-foot'? Yeesh.

It has been mentioned in another thread that subspecies are unlikely for this species, so here are the references that sparked my curiosity:

http://www.henodus.com/TortueTestudinidae.html shows a Northern as a specific sub-species, and Southern as an unnamed sub, without info as to where the info came from.

http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/851.pdf lists Dr. Harold Artner (Emys 10 (6), 2003) and Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles: An Action Plan for Their Conservation by David Stubbs in 1989 both list carbonaria subspecies. In an e-mail, Dr. Artner said he believes there to be at least 2 subspecies. I have not read Stubb's article but excerpts do not seem to show citations.

With all of the changes going on in taxonomy lately, it is tough to stay on top of it... I cannot seem to find any sort of e-mail digest that would just keep me automatically updated when things change for Red-foots

I would say there was 4 subspecies of Redfoots. No one as of yet has done anything definative towards this end. But here's how I'd split them.
Northern Redfoots-light plastron, with or without a dark diamond in the center
Brazilian Redfoots-slightly larger than Northerns, darker plastron, with the dark color following the seams
Cherry-headed Redfoots-smallest subspecies, very dark plastron, centers of each plastral scute light colored and plastral mottling, sometimes with carapace mottling
Chacoan Redfoots-largest subspecies, very dark plastron, centers of each plastral scute light, no mottling on plastron or carapace

Danny

And where does "guyana", "colombian" and "suriname" fit in there? 'Cause I"m totally lost!

They would be all Northerns Kelly, just from different countries within the range. They are very variable head and leg colorwise, but very much the same; shell shape, shell coloring and sizewise. You can't name a subspecies on color alone, if you did there would be a 1,000 new Terrapene carolina subspecies

Danny

Surinames and Colombians are alot different. Its not just a color thing. If you ever seen a Colombian red foots they have huge domed shells and surinames are flat and become hour glass shaped.

Even the head shape if different. Suriname's have an arrow shaped head and Colombians have a round toad shaped head.

way different. If their are subspecies It would be common sense not to lump these two together.

I will take some pictures tomorrow.

Species are increasingly defined by DNA, skeletal differences, etc. which takes some of the guesswork out. Questions like "Is this color/size/shape genetic or environmental/dietary?" cause a lot of problems for category makers.

From what I can see, the authors who advocate sub-species seem to think that the 'Northerns' (light plastron) are one group, and the 'Southerns' with the dark plastrons make up one or two groups.

Another issue might be interbreeding with Yellow-foots, which might explain some of the shell/head shape issues in some areas. (I saw an abstract about this here http://www.springerlink.com/content/6n5l773324822013/, but have not read the article.)

FYI: Dr. Pritchard (Turtles of Venezuela, 1984) listed seven 'groups' (but he does not call them sub-species):
- Panamanian (rounder shell, browner base color)
- Falcon' (a semi-isolated region on a peninsula in north west Venezuela)- smaller, more variable but generally lighter carapace)
- Island (smaller sizes based on small samples)
- Northern for the rest of the 'light plastrons'
- Chalco from Paraguay and Bolivia (Dark plastron, large size, no wasp-waist, coffee color shell)
- Brazilian (much like a Northern with the dark plastron)
- Argentinian (the red-phased 'cherry-heads' we now know to come from south-east Brazil)



IF they went with the 3 groups they seem to be leaning towards, I DID find some better names, based on local terms:
- Northern- Morrocoy
- Brazilian- Juboti (Japuti, Japuta)
- Southwestern- Karumbe'

madkins is there any proof of redfoot/yellowfoot hybrids in the wild or even in captivity?

Redfootedboxturtles Wrote:madkins is there any proof of redfoot/yellowfoot hybrids in the wild or even in captivity?

In captivity yes. But this is because of animals being placed together in an unnatural setting.
Of the thousands of imported RF and YF that I have seen, I don't recall ever seeing what I thought was a hybrid.
In the wild when denticulata and carbonaria are sympatric, they have elaborate courtship behaviors that protect from interbreeding.
Also, Pritchard has informed me in the past that where both species occur together then they are the most different morphologically. In these mixed populations the carbonaria are especially colorful with very different head colors than the denticulata. The head bobbing recognition behavior that carbonaria engage in also seems better developed in the northern populations where they are likely to encounter denticulata.
I know that my cherryheads don't seem to do as much head bobbing as my northern RFs did.

So the question now is. Does red and yellow really make green?!
Would be cool to see pics. Cdmay I was told by the breeder I received my first redfoots from the exact thing. The head bobbing, That they were very different. He kept a large group of both in a pen. That if the red and yellows did the head bobbing to each other it would take about 30 secs for them to loose interest.


Any way back the the subject. I have way better pics at the office showing off the head shapes but check out the dome vs flat



This is guyana vs colombian. I will get pics of the suriname to show the huge difference in shell and head shape.

there is someone on Kingsnake claiming to have three yellow/red hybrids... he's asking $850 for them, but says he didn't actually see the female lay them... so there's no "proof" (imho)

I've seen them Kelly and they are just Redfoots

cdmay do you know if there are any pictures around of the hybrids that occured in captivity? I too have never seen a hybrid come out of the wild and as far as I know Peter Pritchard hasn't either.
I personally haven't seen any of the hybrids produced in captivity.

rfbt what you are describing is the difference between males and females. Males have the arrow shaped heads and females heads are more toad shaped. The males have less domed shells with pinched waists in the Northern population, females have domed shells with no pinched waists.
My pair of Surinames were exactly this way.

Danny

When I go outside and look at mine its like I can tell the differnce right away. But I dont have a large colombian male just a small one with pyramiding so I cant say for sure what an adult male looks like.

If I am reading this abstract right (and believe me, I can't make heads or tails of some of it!), there is DNA evidence of either hybridization or something else going on in the wild...

http://www.springerlink.com/content/6n5l773324822013/

(The Xingu River branches off the Amazon to the south close to the river's mouth. The Xingu runs right down the middle of Brazil.)

I do not have any photos of the supposed hydrids I have seen but they were all captive produced and there have been only about two or three that I actualy saw.
As for the shell shape differences between the Colombian and Suriname populations I think that Redfootedboxturtles is only looking at a few animals. If you look at a large group of the the two populations you will find that they vary tremendously within each group. All of my Colombian animals that I had in the 70s and 80s were different from one another in shape...and yes, I had a male that had greenish and white scutes mixed in with the yellow and orange on his head. A cool looking dude.
My two adult female cherryheads are quite different in size and shape even though I picked them from the same group of juveniles years ago.

BTW...does anyone have the full article on the Xingu River tortoises?