A "male" pardalis pardalis update

[diamondbp]

I'm just amazed at how much my young male p.pardalis has blossomed in a few months. He went from having me confused about his sex to having ZERO doubt in just a few short months. Here are a few updated shots to show how large his tail has become compared to a link from September. Not to mention the shell size difference overall. I'm very proud of this guy.

 

[diamondbp]

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/officially-2years-old.100891/#post-941838

this was my update link on him from a few months back for you to see how different he looks now.

 

[wellington]

Looks like you wanted him to be a her in the earlier thread. Well, you didn't get that, but you did get a beautiful male.

 

[Jodie]

Very nice looking tortoise. I love his coloring.

 

[mike taylor]

Well when he was younger did he have his tail hanging down or tucked up?

 

[diamondbp]

Well when he was younger did he have his tail hanging down or tucked up?

He was a tail swinger from day one. If he was walking his tail was swinging, even as before a year of age

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Wow, he looks almost exactly like my Levi! The heavy skin splotches too.

He's cool... I can't wait till you know genders of the whole bale! And then make humid started babies
well, they'll make them..not you.. but you'll head start them lol

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Well when he was younger did he have his tail hanging down or tucked up?

I know this has always interested you. I thought I noticed similarities too. Boys had tucked tails, girl had down. Well, we got a rule breaker!
@Elohi now has Summer who I always believed to be female. Stumpy tail, always..always..ALWAYS carried down and everything about "her" made us lean female. Recently, Monica was flashed...summer is male! Monica, does the tail still carry down? Or is it now tucked?

 

[Elohi]

I know this has always interested you. I thought I noticed similarities too. Boys had tucked tails, girl had down. Well, we got a rule breaker!
@Elohi now has Summer who I always believed to be female. Stumpy tail, always..always..ALWAYS carried down and everything about "her" made us lean female. Recently, Monica was flashed...summer is male! Monica, does the tail still carry down? Or is it now tucked?

He's a mixed bag with the tail tucking. When he relaxes or naps his tail is down. He tends to tuck when being handled now, which is interesting. I can't wait until my others start presenting male/female.
Also, his plastron is starting to concave.

 

[diamondbp]

Now he is just getting totally carried away with all this "maleness" crap !! Gzzzz yuck.
I guess finding him a pardalis pardalis girlfriend will be my main mission this year.

 

[Elohi]

Ahhhhhhh the alien!! Hahaha

 

[tortadise]

Nice specimen.

 

[Tom]

All my males were the same way. And when it hits, it really HITS! They don't slow down either. They are as bad as any of those crazy Testudo that I've seen too. They are much more sexually aggressive than any of my male sulcatas too. The breeder that I got mine from had one the he compared to a pinball machine. He said it just bounced from female to female all day long.

 

[leigti]

Now he is just getting totally carried away with all this "maleness" crap !! Gzzzz yuck.
I guess finding him a pardalis pardalis girlfriend will be my main mission this year. View attachment 113122View attachment 113123

After readings Tom's post you may have to find more than one girlfriend.

 

[Tom]

After readings Tom's post you may have to find more than one girlfriend.

I know you were joking, but these males are so crazy, it might be best to house the male all alone and just allow visits as needed. Seriously. I have all my males housed separately. The females all live together in harmony and peace away from the males. I'm going to let the females get some more size on them before I let the males in with them.

 

[diamondbp]

Well what's crazy is I have 12 pure p.pardalis in hopes of eventually having a 3:7 or close to. I figured I would have to rehome a few males out of the group but now all 3 of my oldest are surely male. Even my 2nd to largest who looked very female just two months ago is now having a big time increase in tail size. It's almost like every time I check it's tail is longer .
So unfortunately it looks like I have a future dilemma on my hands . I'm saving all the money from my sulcata hatchling sales to hopefully purchase some young female p.pardalis if some ever become available :/

If I remember correctly I think Tom ended up in a similar situation. Tom didn't you have the majority of your hatchlings turn out male?

And what's a bummer is that many if the young p.pardalis I've purchased were started out very dry and it took me months to get them to even start growing. But now that they are in a sealed enclosure their growth has begun to escalate. Here are a few that took some time to begin growing and have FINALLY began to sprout.

 

[gingerbee]

Handsome tort!!!

 

[Tom]

Tom didn't you have the majority of your hatchlings turn out male?

Yes, but I think that was my dumb fault. I originally got 36 hatchlings in September of 2010. I sold off all but 14. Once I got down to 14, I held them for another year and a half or so, and then started selling off more. I kept the biggest, best looking, fastest growers. Well, OF COURSE, those are going to be mostly males. I ended up with 7 of 9 being male. The breeder and others told me that males were very rare in this species/variety (Gpp) and almost all of them would be female. Males, I was told were very hard to come by. So I was hoping to have at least one or two males out of the 14 I kept, assuming based on what I was told that they would be mostly females.

Live and learn, I suppose. I ended up getting two back from a friend that were both female and another friend gave me two full size adult females that are totally unrelated to this group as far as I know. So now I have a total of 6 females and 3 males. Yvonne ended up with one male and one female. Lucky for her! These are just the best tortoises ever. Seriously. They have all the good attributes of everyone's favorite species, with none of the bad. I love them. I expect to be getting eggs in 2016 or 2017, depending on how much the females grow between now and then. I intend to keep a whole bunch of my first hatchlings and raise them up until I can sex them.

 

[diamondbp]

I agree totally that this species is just incredible. As long as I've dealing with various turtle and tortoise species I've never had one catch my heart like these (& gulf coast box turtles lol)

If males are hard to come by in this variant of leopards then I ggguuesss we hit the tortoise jackpot?? Lol jj I really have to find these boys some future girlies now.

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?

 

[gingerbee]

Now I know I want one!! After all the conversation about how great they are!!! Lol