A "male" pardalis pardalis update

[Tom]

While I have your attention Tom, this particular leopard was sold to me as pure p.pardalis, but as it grows my suspicions are growing toward a babcocki/pardalis mix. What's your opinion? The very high dome, overall shape, and current shell pattern all seem to indicate some babcocki blood. Attached is the picture from the ad months back and a current photo ...Any thoughts?

There is just no way to know for sure unless you know the origins of both parents. Once people start mixing them it just becomes a big mess. The one in the top pic shows the characteristics of a Gpp, but who knows.

 

[diamondbp]

Here was the pictures of the parents (supposedly). I'm not saying I doubt the seller at all but these two seem very different from my other young pure p.pardalis. I have two from this clutch but the other(hatchling on the left of the group shot) took a while to begin growing but has recently begun(thanks to a sealed enclosure).

So here is the other from the same clutch and the picture of the parents. I know the male was from Ben Awes pair and I know is a legit p.pardalis. If this female is the actual mother then she definitely has the size of a pure pardalis.

Either way they are turning out to be nice leos. Sometimes I analyze things to much but I would like to have a pure group.

 

[Elohi]

Oooooooo that mama is nice!

 

[Tom]

There are 11 "clades" within the giant territory of the leopard tortoise. If memory serves, 6 of those clades are in South Africa. I have personally seen at least two of the different South African varieties. The ones from the south tend to be much darker while the ones from farther north in SA tend to be lighter colored. Both of these two types that I have seen get very large and looked decidedly different than the regular leopards.

It is certainly possible that what we are looking at here is a genuine SA leopard (what we used to call Gpp), but from a different locality than the other ones we've been looking at and talking about. I also have a large female that looks just like the one in your last pic. She's a little over 18" and 35-40 pounds. I'm told she is "South African", but I have no way to verify this. I think she is too large to be a "regular" leopard, but her personality is not like my "real" South Africans either. My conclusion is that she is either a mix, or from a different SA location.

 

[diamondbp]

There are 11 "clades" within the giant territory of the leopard tortoise. If memory serves, 6 of those clades are in South Africa. I have personally seen at least two of the different South African varieties. The ones from the south tend to be much darker while the ones from farther north in SA tend to be lighter colored. Both of these two types that I have seen get very large and looked decidedly different than the regular leopards.

It is certainly possible that what we are looking at here is a genuine SA leopard (what we used to call Gpp), but from a different locality than the other ones we've been looking at and talking about. I also have a large female that looks just like the one in your last pic. She's a little over 18" and 35-40 pounds. I'm told she is "South African", but I have no way to verify this. I think she is too large to be a "regular" leopard, but her personality is not like my "real" South Africans either. My conclusion is that she is either a mix, or from a different SA location.

Thanks for the insight Tom. I would love to study each clade hands on. Is there any on eperson that's a worldwide authority on leopards in particular?

 

[Tom]

Is there any on eperson that's a worldwide authority on leopards in particular?

Not that I know of. There are several people that have been working with them for decades here in the US, but I don't know of any field "experts".

Our own Will has quite a lot of practical knowledge of wild African tortoise from the field studies he has done. @Will, care to comment or add anything?

Anything in particular you wanted to know Diamond?

 

[diamondbp]

Not that I know of. There are several people that have been working with them for decades here in the US, but I don't know of any field "experts".

Our own Will has quite a lot of practical knowledge of wild African tortoise from the field studies he has done. @Will, care to comment or add anything?

Anything in particular you wanted to know Diamond?

I didn't think to ask @Will or @Neal or any other leopard experts to have a look. I was surprised to learn that south africa hosted that many of the clades. I thought it was just one. That makes it all the more interesting.

My buddy Scott got to witness several in the wild last year and I'm sure you remember that post showing all of his finds. He was even lucky enough to find a freshly emerged hatchling. http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/pictures-in-s-africa-of-p-pardalis.87538/#post-815839

Even if there was a good book or source of some kind that could give a basic breakdown of the different clades to reference.

Just call me Byron Tom. Thanks for your help. I really appreciate your knowledge and dedication.

 

[Tom]

Byron, I'll bet Neal still has a link to the study that explains the current taxonomy and distribution of leopards. It sounds like you would thoroughly enjoy that paper.

Ask Neal if he still has the study on wild leopard diets too. That was a good one.

@jaizei is the master of finding old links and info. J, might you be able to help Byron find the two links we are talking about?

 

[Neal]

I agree that you likely will never be able to determine that your tortoise in post #22 is pure SA leopard or not. From my observation, I don't think it is. The female certainly doesn't appear to have many SA leopard characteristics.

Here's a bunch of research articles on leopard tortoises. The first one is the one Tom mentioned:

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread...-research-articles-and-case-study-list.58336/

Most are several years old now, and there are newer articles out there. I have not had time to update the list yet.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

One of the problems with at least some of the localities is that the population has been entirely introduced, or heavily mixed by people. That is even one of the issues causing problems with other species of tortoise in Africa, an introduced leopard takes up space and resources for the endangered tortoise.

Even when importation was happening, sometimes animals would be all shipped from one or just a few exporters, but collected from very large areas, even a few countries away. It is not appropriate to considers today's tight animal trade restrictions onto the past. This same kind of issue even plagues many 'scientific collections' in museums.

It would be a difficult task to know unless you yourself, or some trusted person did their own field collecting in a relatively remote place.

 

[Robber]

Here was the pictures of the parents (supposedly). I'm not saying I doubt the seller at all but these two seem very different from my other young pure p.pardalis. I have two from this clutch but the other(hatchling on the left of the group shot) took a while to begin growing but has recently begun(thanks to a sealed enclosure).
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The hatchlings really look like babcocki except for the double dots, which as we know is not the only distinguishing characteristic.