Dwarf Redfoot?

Redfool

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Redfoot pros, has anyone heard of a non cherry head dwarf regular Redfoot? I have a 25 year old 9” 9.5lb female. Her name is Blondie due to her larger than normal yellow areolas on her scutes. She was raised the same way as 3 other younger 13.5+” 15lb. females. This one is said to be the offspring of redfoots wild collected from Corn Island Nicaragua. She lays clutches of always 3 half dollar size eggs when the others lay 6 to 8 silver dollar size eggs four or five times a year. They hatch out tiny yet normal. She has mated with a normal size 14” male yet all the eggs/offspring are small. I know by her size she can’t possibly lay normal size like the others. The tortoise farm I got her from has since closed and the owner has passed so I can’t find history if others are available. Just would like to see if anyone has an “anomaly” tort like this.
IMG_0373.jpg
 

MysticCaribou

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She's beautiful. Love the fact that she's smaller. My preference. Looking forward to hearing the responses to your post.
 

Anyfoot

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Sorry. Can't help. My adult northerns are all 11" and bigger. I have two sub adults around 9" but I'm sure they will get bigger.
It would be nice if you could get s herd of 9" northerns.
@cdmay. @domalle have a vast amount of knowledge on redfoots.
 

TammyJ

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You have a beautiful little treasure.
 

ZEROPILOT

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I've had them grow at wildly different rates.
I wonder if this one grew up with another tortoise nearby?
It could be a case of stunted growth rather than a genetic thing.
But it looks like the result is a nice looking, smaller tortoise.
 

HarvestHerp5

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I love her. She's just gorgeous. I would be happy with a RF that stays smaller. I did read somewhere that the Corn Island ones are smaller, but ???? I have no idea if that's true.
 

Anyfoot

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I didn't know the redfoots were native to corn island. Are they farm raised on this island?
 

Redfool

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The man who collected them went there in the early 90s. Feb. Mar. Apr. is the drier season when ponds dry up. This concentrated them for easy collection. [emoji217]
 

Redfool

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I've had them grow at wildly different rates.
I wonder if this one grew up with another tortoise nearby?
It could be a case of stunted growth rather than a genetic thing.
But it looks like the result is a nice looking, smaller tortoise.

I’ve had her since a hatchling. She was alone for first year 1992. She got a tankmate the next year. They were raised in a 48”x36” closed table. At 4 years old she and her 3 year old tankmate went into an outdoor enclosure. [emoji217]
 

Redfool

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Yes, all my females have been raised since hatchlings. My other 3 quickly outgrew Blondie. Even at about 15 years old she never seemed bigger than a box turtle. My grandson calls her offspring micro machines, like his toy cars he plays with.
 

cdmay

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Very cool animal.
Ok, here is what I know...
Red footed tortoises are a very 'plastic' animal. This means that they can adapt and even change their appearance after only a relatively few generations. So the Corn Island tortoises are likely smaller due to the environment.
Same goes for the red footed tortoises on Water Island next to St. Thomas, the population on Barbuda, and other insular populations. Is it genetic? Probably after many generations.
But like the Hog Island boas imported decades ago that were all smaller than five feet regardless of age, after a generation or two in captivity with abundant food, they began to grow to be nine feet long.
In other words, are they genetically smaller, or ENVIRONMENTALLY smaller?
Peter Pritchard once told me that Indian Ocean tortoises could be quite small depending on which Island they came from. But others of the same species on neighboring islands were huge because of their diet.
If you could pair up Blondie with a similar male of the same origin it would be great. That's how regional variants are preserved.
 

Redfool

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Wow, thanks for the info on environmental adaptive genetics. Explains why she is small. I have yet to find a small fully mature male her size but haven’t stopped looking. With my redfoot family now in their prime at 20 to 25 years old, I just don’t know if I have raising another generation in me. [emoji217]
 

William Lee Kohler

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Very cool animal.
Ok, here is what I know...
Red footed tortoises are a very 'plastic' animal. This means that they can adapt and even change their appearance after only a relatively few generations. So the Corn Island tortoises are likely smaller due to the environment.
Same goes for the red footed tortoises on Water Island next to St. Thomas, the population on Barbuda, and other insular populations. Is it genetic? Probably after many generations.
But like the Hog Island boas imported decades ago that were all smaller than five feet regardless of age, after a generation or two in captivity with abundant food, they began to grow to be nine feet long.
In other words, are they genetically smaller, or ENVIRONMENTALLY smaller?
Peter Pritchard once told me that Indian Ocean tortoises could be quite small depending on which Island they came from. But others of the same species on neighboring islands were huge because of their diet.
If you could pair up Blondie with a similar male of the same origin it would be great. That's how regional variants are preserved.

Have not seen it mentioned before but could pyramiding at a young age stunt their growth? It seems to me that with the bone growth going into height instead of width/length on scutes this could be the case:confused:?
 

allegraf

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Very pretty little tortoise. I can’t add anything, but sounds like Cdmay hit the nail on the head.
 

cdmay

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Have not seen it mentioned before but could pyramiding at a young age stunt their growth? It seems to me that with the bone growth going into height instead of width/length on scutes this could be the case:confused:?

That's not an unreasonable thing to assume. If that were true though we wouldn't expect to see larger sized tortoises that are pyramided or 'lumpy'.
But since there are many big pyramided tortoises around, its likely not the cause of why Blondie has remained small. Besides, she isn't that badly misshapen as say, Charlie's Martha is.

Although none of us can say for sure just what has caused Blondie to remain small after so many years, I would tend to stick to the concept that she is just from a smaller population. It would be very neat to see other individuals from her point of origin.
If 'farmed', what is the origin of the original brood stock? Is there, (or was there) a wild (surely introduced) population of red-footed tortoises on Corn Island? What do they look like? These are all questions that would be good to know the answers to.

Over the years I've seen red-foots supposedly from various islands in the Caribbean--all of which were originally brought over from South America by Caribe (Carib) or other tribal cultures many years ago. Or mariners as was mentioned above. There are established populations on several of the U.S. Virgin Islands, etc.
None of the red-foots that I saw from those places were particularly small however which is not surprising because these are fairly lush places with plenty of food sources. There are exceptions though and Richard C. Paull wrote an article in REPTILES magazine about an island population (that he did not disclose the name of) that had little vegetation other than cacti. The tortoises he found seemed to be displaying genuine 'insular dwarfism' due to their environment.
Pritchard used to have a decent sized group from Barbuda at his home in Oveido back in the mid 80s. He would travel there and simply suitcase adults back with him! Those were the days....sigh. Anyway, they were mid sized red-foots with nice color but mostly black shells as I remember. Clearly one of the 'northern' types but their original origin no one knows.
 

Redfool

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Are tortoises subject to indeterminate growth like snakes and lizards? I know indeterminate growth is constrained by organ growth. It would be nice and unique if Blondie were to stay small. [emoji217]
 
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