# location specific tortoises



## Kapidolo Farms (Sep 21, 2016)

You know, I get really fatigued with all the hoopla about claims of appellation on tortoises. It may or may not be important. Species with large ranges - it seems like it could have greater significance? 

Contrarily even species like Forsten's tortoise (they all live on one island) have at least two bio-type (not know how much may be genetype, to some degree they are phenotypes), in that there are dry area individuals and wet area individuals.

Maybe it would never be as well organized as @HermanniChris has western Hermans, but it seems like Yellowfoots, Redfoots, elongateds, stars, and Leopards might all bring a stronger connection to some of everyone if they came with known locality. 

I recall when I was buying fish for the Zoo's aquatic turtle section many came with an "L" number indicating that these fish were collected from this location. Plecos seem to stand out in my mind. We had some really cool ones.

Blah blah. 

Does any one have this kind of weird fetish to seek tortoises with location specificity? Maybe to a river drainage or water shed. "The brown river water shed upstream from where the blue river enters it" kind of thing?


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## Neal (Sep 21, 2016)

I suppose I have a fetish for learning about location specific leopards, but what we have to work with is crap so I can't really satisfy the fetish much.

Locality information would be more than simply interesting to me...if I had leopards from known localities I could (maybe) have a better idea of their natural diet is, tolerances for temperature ranges, physical appearance, that type of thing. That knowledge probably wouldn't make a world of difference maybe, but if I could provide my leopards with some marginally "better" and more tailored care, I certainly would seek out that knowledge. Plus it ups the cool factor .

An example of what may be helpful if we had more reliable locality information is the dietary study done by a group of leopards in Tanzania which found that their diet consists of primarily suculents and forbes instead of grasses as seems to be widely accepted as their primary dietary requirement. I don't think the sample range was very large, but I think it's too small a population to apply the finding as the standard across all "normal" types of leopards. Am I making sense? blah blah blah


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## Kapidolo Farms (Sep 21, 2016)

Neal, you have brought up some excellent points that were not even on the periphery of my own thoughts. Yeah it could have many husbandry implications. Egg care too.


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## MichaelaW (Sep 21, 2016)

Will said:


> You know, I get really fatigued with all the hoopla about claims of appellation on tortoises. It may or may not be important. Species with large ranges - it seems like it could have greater significance?
> 
> Contrarily even species like Forsten's tortoise (they all live on one island) have at least two bio-type (not know how much may be genetype, to some degree they are phenotypes), in that there are dry area individuals and wet area individuals.
> 
> ...


I'm with you on that. It's always intrigued me.


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## tortadise (Sep 22, 2016)

I'm absolutely obsessed with this topic. So many species that this falls into. As you said Will species with a massive geographic footprint can vary to those that are smaller. A recent discussion I had with an authority on Cuora, as I've recently gotten heavily into this taxa. Some species, now we're elevated from others that were grouped together. But it's odd to me that the haplotype analysis of these species found so closely together elevate for s full species unlike that of, stigmochelys. Perhaps new research has something to do with it? After all it was the late 90s early 2000s when the phytogeography study took place for the leopard. I have had locale specific leopards and communicated many a times with breeders like Randy Limburge(sp?) and for sure notice a massive difference. For instance the Mozambique locale of pardalis is tiny, females mature size no bigger than a football and males around grapefruit, then the Somalians obtain 90-120 pound female specimens not just 1700 miles apart from each other. That's just 400 more miles than the leopard variance distance. Compared to the 3 toe box turtle in Texas compared to eastern in New Jersey completely different species. Why wouldn't the Mozambique differ from the Somaliensis? Scientifically it's beyond my knowledge for sure perhaps.

But back to the cuora they came be found overlapping even and be completely different species. Blah blah blah for me too.

I'm hugely into locale specific or at least known origin of any taxa, or specimen. I see a variety of differences in so many species. i have 4 different clades of carbonaria and each one when placed next to one another represents an entirely different physical shape, coloration of scales, size, and even behaviorism.


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## Anyfoot (Sep 22, 2016)

Do I have locality obsession? Maybe with the redfooted species, I'd certainly like to learn as much as I can. I often wonder if we refer to them too generally, northerns, Brazilians(cherryheads) and Bolivians etc. How deep does it really go though. For example go back to northerns, let's pick on Venezuela, How many localities of reds are there in Venezuela, do these different localities within Venezuela show obvious signs of differences. If so, why? To the north in Venezuela they have the Columbian form, apparently the same as central Columbia. Really, do they? Let's ignore all the country boarder lines we humans put on a map and just work left to right above the Amazon river. Would we just see a gradual intergrade change from Columbia through to French Guiana. If not does that mean man interfered somewhere in history by moving torts around. 
I can certainly see why someone would get obsessed with locality, I know I would if given the opportunity. 
My own 10 adults, huh. 
3 Brazilians, 1 of which is totally different to the other 2. 
5 northerns, none look the same(well maybe 2 are) 
2 intergrades. 
Guess I'll start a new locality.(UK(Sheffield)) 
Hey, did I just do, Blah, blah, blah. 

I'll just be happy to put boot on ground somewhere where I can look for reds in the wild for now. Is there anywhere safe?


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## HermanniChris (Sep 22, 2016)

Well I think we all know I'm obsessed with this topic...sickly obsessed pretty much haha.

It took so much effort and a huge chunk of my life to get where I'm at with the western Hermann's locales. I've ventured into it now with Greeks and have aways had a heavy collection of Terrepene subspecies and locales...everything from the three Mexican species to the easterns and in between. 

Being able to do the genetic testing on the Hermann's had a big role in this though. The fact that they could be placed in the designated locales that we imported them as by looking at their DNA and comparing it to previous findings was pretty moving. At least for me. Some don't care and that's fine but I'll always keep them completely separated. Proposal of new subspecies within the western grouping is on the horizon which is not surprising to me at all and I fully support it and revisiting the eastern and western for elevation to full species rank is also coming. It was only tentatively rejected in the first place. 

I'm also involved in Cuora bourreti genetics but have not received results yet. Perhaps the most exciting genetic work I'm part of is a study on North American wood turtles with New Jersey Fish and Wildlife. They sampled almost all our wood turtles and results should be in around Christmas. It's a fun project. 

Locales and placement in nature have always thrilled me. I just find it so amazing how phenotypic traits vary in such a way that at times, you'd swear you're looking at an entirely different animal. Then at times you aren't which can be just as shocking.


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## Tom (Sep 22, 2016)

It matters to me too.

I love my SA leopards and they are so distinctly different than "regular" leopards.

I'm also fascinated by the prospect of how my Sudan Sulcatas are going to turn out.

Will, I worked for the main guy that was importing all those plecos back in the late 80's and 90's. Opening those boxes from Belem was one of my favorite tasks. We saw some amazing animals that were completely unknown to science. I can't tell you how many "different" Cory cats we'd find that could not be identified in the latest Japanese, European or American catfish books. We imported the first Zebra plecos and many others too. Fun times, those were…

@Neal ,
I know how to hook you up if you are ready to buy location specific "other" leopards…


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## Kapidolo Farms (Sep 23, 2016)

Tom said:


> It matters to me too.
> 
> I love my SA leopards and they are so distinctly different than "regular" leopards.
> 
> ...




Just Neal, okay, be that way. LOL.


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## Kapidolo Farms (Sep 23, 2016)

Frankly I saw a star shell from Pakistan, and that tortoise must have weighed at least ten pounds, it was like a small leopard in size. I saw the Behler Institute was trying to work something out at one time, but no further information other than that they were trying to work something out. Russians would be another good one.


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## Tom (Sep 23, 2016)

Will said:


> Frankly I saw a star shell from Pakistan, and that tortoise must have weighed at least ten pounds, it was like a small leopard in size. I saw the Behler Institute was trying to work something out at one time, but no further information other than that they were trying to work something out. Russians would be another good one.



Russian localities have always interested me too, but I've found no way to pursue this.


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## Tom (Sep 23, 2016)

Will said:


> Just Neal, okay, be that way. LOL.



I guess I'd be willing to help you too… If it matters that much to you…


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## Kapidolo Farms (Jan 17, 2017)

Right now on Facebook "turtle and tortoise classifieds", in part managed by semi frequent posters here, is a male M.e.p. of unknown origin. The tortoise looks great and there is no reason to suspect that there is anything wrong with the animal itself. The price is what the seller thinks is appropriate and I have no reason to argue or quibble over that.

But a sub-adult should be known for the breeder it can from or the WC source. The seller does not know or won't say. The person who sold to the current seller stepped up and said he bought it from another person four years ago. So in four years time a sub-adult went through two people is in the hands of a third and will soon be going to a fourth. WTF?

Didn't anyone have a commitment to the animal itself? Rare coin collectors don't turn over their collections like this. What's more when someone does finally end up with this tortoise they won't know if they would be breeding siblings or WC to F1 or F2. WTF?

I sold a few M.e.p. in 2013, many of which were turned over to another person through sale within months. I offered to buy back from the original purchaser if they changed their mind. They re-sold at a considerable mark-up which blew my mind, That trends towards someone buying that was relatively uninformed of the species or their breeding in the US.

Further motivation, I will only sell non-mutt animals with PIT tags from now on.

I'll post all the tag numbers here, my Facebook Kapidolo Farms, and an international registry for pet with PIT tags. I won't post who I sell to, but whoever bothers to see if there is a PIT tag should be able to track that it came from this dame and this sire.


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## Yvonne G (Jan 17, 2017)

Will said:


> Frankly I saw a star shell from Pakistan, and that tortoise must have weighed at least ten pounds, it was like a small leopard in size. I saw the Behler Institute was trying to work something out at one time, but no further information other than that they were trying to work something out. Russians would be another good one.



Quite some time ago a guy came here and took blood samples from all my russian tortoises. At that time I had 15 of them. He short-clipped a nail and took the blood sample and noted down all the animal's characteristics. At that time his reason for doing so went right over my head, but I'm THINKING maybe he was doing DNA??? At any rate, I never heard back about the study or from the guy. I can't even remember now what his name was.


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## Kapidolo Farms (Jan 18, 2017)

Yvonne G said:


> Quite some time ago a guy came here and took blood samples from all my russian tortoises. At that time I had 15 of them. He short-clipped a nail and took the blood sample and noted down all the animal's characteristics. At that time his reason for doing so went right over my head, but I'm THINKING maybe he was doing DNA??? At any rate, I never heard back about the study or from the guy. I can't even remember now what his name was.




Now you have something to follow-up on!


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## Yvonne G (Jan 18, 2017)

Will said:


> Now you have something to follow-up on!



I posted about it here on the Forum, so maybe if I find that old post I'll know the guy's name.


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