That’s awesome! Would you mind getting some pictures of the shell and straight carapace length? That would be super helpful. Michael and I are putting together a study to finish someday about denticulatus size variation
Revisiting this topic, do you perhaps know what happened to this tortoise? Or do you still have the shell or skull? Those could be helpful for measurements and figuring out the cause of the immense size differences present in C. denticulatus
The female yellowfoot from the St. Louis Zoo is 37” and 200 pounds. The male is 33” and 154 pounds. Yellowfoots are the fourth largest tortoise in the world, after the African Spurred (300lbs, from Sudan), Seychelles-Aldabra complex (600lbs), and the Galapagos tortoise complex (920lbs)
The...
I go back and forth. I don’t see them being predators, I mean, unless they are somehow fast and maneuverable [emoji23]. Maybe they used that massive head to crush large branches, or maybe they somehow managed to attack other animals, kill them, and crush their bodies with their skulls. That’s...
I’d think they come from a locale that produces giants, since they both are very large and probably came from the same spot. It would be awesome if it turtles out to be a spot full of giants!
I’ve also heard of macrocephaly in some populations of alligator snapping turtles, further exacerbating their already giant head size. However, I’ve never heard of or seen it in common snappers. That probably has to do with diet. Unsurprisingly, I’ve never seen or heard of it in any tortoises. I...
Nice to see actual weights. My estimate was not pure guesswork, since It’s shell for sure surpasses 3 to 3.5 feet, the owners know that info. The weight, however, was based off similar length tortoises, and at full weight
A lot of this information is just hard to find, to further complicate things, there is a lot of biased information out their, you will hear many claims, but the truth is more complicated than just Galapagos tortoise, Aldabra, and sulcata. There are at least 10 extant, diverse species of...
The picture of the yellow foots with the Aldabras comes from: https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/some-zoo-photos-of-a-true-giant-yellow-foot-tortoise.59685/
Galapagos tortoise species are often lumped together in conversation when they really shouldn’t be. The truth is that they are extremely diverse in size, shape, and their habitat requirements . However, only about half of the total species are represented in captivity, with none of the true...