Are these PB S. African Leopards?

diamondbp

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I hope Andy at ATC doesn't mine me posting these, but they are from various SA groups that have been posted on Facebook over the last few years. I totally trust Andy that all showed are pure SA leopards and there are some with single or no dots. I'm just posting these photos to put additional information in the discussion.
 

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diamondbp

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The smaller group shot is not from ATC but of a group of SA babies found online from an unknown source
 

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diamondbp

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Two more from a group Andy had a few years back. Again I hope it doesn't mind me using the pictures for examples.
 

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tortadise

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Keep in mind that various and extremely thorough studies have been concluded that the leopard tortoise is still indeed a solitary species that links back one chemical haplotype and genetic relation. However I must bring this article up again. It may been extremely difficult to make sense of the scientific nomenclature cited in the findings. But we have to keep remembering that although many tortoises can resemble similar physical accordance so that are relatable to being similar that does not constitute it of being just. In the article is specifically states that "Clade3(III)" which is specifically South Africa(western Karoo, and Cape) and Namibia displayed the most likely to be diverse. But this is most likely to be diverse among its own sample of those regions and not diverse of the entire species of pardalis. Kenya, and Ethipia were the only others close to becoming unique but all genetic trees played back to proving obsolete.

So keep in mind again that pardalis has a huge range and from South African lets says Cspe to southern Namibia may display different size, shape, and offspring variation. Unless genetic analysis is concurrent and represented in any collection and regionally sounded, then any guess, observation, or offering is just speculation in my opinion. Especially with South African species. They vary so greatly from one region to the next.

Homopus signatus signatus versus homopus signatus cafer for example are the same tiny species of padloper. But the H.S?cafer resides in a specific tiny region all by itself and has darker coloration but genetically has proven to mutate and become a subspecies.

Pssamobates is the same thing. P. Tentorius oculifer versus P. tentorius veroxxi are very very similar but reside in specific regions overlapping one another but genetically test as different splayed trees in the haplotype analysis thusly giving them a difference classification.

I think pardalis is a unique species that genetically doesn't have to mutate or change its diversity in whichever region, whether it be sub arid to sub tropical acacia savanna. They're designed to thrive in whichever region and range they are planted or naturally range themselves too. Visual perception is just one of the many variations that could or could not display the validity of its origins.

The study for good reading.
http://www.iucn-tftsg.org/wp-content/uploads/file/Articles/Fritz_etal_2010a.pdf
 
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Az tortoise compound

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Thanks for posting all those pictures Diamondbp, saved me from having to find them in my computer. The original post, yes those are pp leos and good looking ones at that, nice job Leopard on producing them.

Pp leos in the US have a more elongated body shape, more speckling through out the skin and are known for the double dot on the shell. As adults the Pp Leos look like someone dropped a gallon of black paint on the shell and the color splattered. The pb leos adults do not look like this. The pictures Tom posted of Randy's adults are true pardalis but extremely old. Older animals, the shell gets weathered and the patterns and designs are harder to see and the blonde is more pronounced then the black splatters. Many of Randy's and my own hatchlings produced are single, double, triple, quadruple and sometimes just totally crazy, and some without any dots at all. Also to note, a good 50/50 ratio of pardalis hatchlings Randy produces come out orange, gold or yellow in color. (with time these colors fade to normal blondes/yellow) The most common way I tell if it is a pp leo is by the elongated body shape. I think Barry is the only public breeder that openly sells hybrid leos. Also many non public breeders but sellers that have a hard time finding one sex or the other or cant afford it. Always by from someone you can trust when it comes to this. To touch on Kelly's points, that all needs to be taken into consideration as well if talking in genetically pure term. Anyone breeding pp leos will have to explain all this quite often :)

My Pb adult group is 2 decades older then my Pp adult group, so in turn my breeder Pb are larger then my breeder PP. When people come over to see my place it blows their minds. A lot of explaining has to be done there as well :)


Pictured below are pp leos

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These are Pardalis Babcocki....

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Tom

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I keep my SA Leopards separately with other normal leopard. I know they are different. There is no chance that your female to contact with my other males. I never put them together. I have other business to make living. This is only my hobby. I am honest person. I don't have to try make a little more money by lying to people.

I never accused you of lying. I'm only saying that it happens, and everyone knows it happens. Also, I was not asking if you mixed your SA leopards with EA leopards, I was asking if your SA leopards from the lady in Idaho ever had contact with the other SA leopards from Nick and Wanda. If yes, then mystery solved.

I'm not lying either. Nor am I trying to lead anyone to believe something that isn't true. I am simply sharing what I have seen.

Can you offer an explanation of why ALL of the SA leopards that I saw at the breeders place show the double dotted vertebral scutes, but 8 out of 14 of yours do not? I can't explain it, if there has been no contact with genetically different males.
 

Tom

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I have other business to make living. This is only my hobby. I am honest person. I don't have to try make a little more money by lying to people.

Me too. On all counts.
 

Tom

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I think Barry is the only public breeder that openly sells hybrid leos.

There are at least 6 breeders on this forum knowingly, purposely, breeding "hybrids". I've heard of countless others. Then there are the people who were sold a mix and told by what they believe is a reputable seller that it was a true SA leopard. They don't know that it isn't "pure", so they breed it and explain the unusual markings away in some way or other.

We all acquire new animals over the years. I have a friend who bought several adult Gpp. When he bred them, he discovered that some of them weren't what he thought they were. I have a big mature female right now that sure looks Gpp and I'm told she is. I'm convinced enough to breed her and find out, but I won't represent her offspring the same as I would as the offspring that are directly from Randy.

In my two years of buying more than 70 of Randy's babies, not a one of them had anything other than double dots in most of the vertebral scutes. Nor did any of the ones that I did not buy. I did not see the variation you describe.
 

Az tortoise compound

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Tom, Randy was extremely kind to you and only sent you double dotted ones with perfect shells. When I sell wholesale groups, I am not as kind as Randy and I do include mis-scute and or single dotted animals. It is honestly really east to tell the pp and pb apart. Maybe with a little more time and if you start breeding them in the future, you will understand more clearly and will also be producing some single dotted hatchlings as well. I have seen, held and sold 1000 - 1200 pp leo hatchlings in the past 4-6 years, have been to Randy's facility, speak with him on a weekly basis, produce my own pp leos and some of my offspring are single dotted like I mentioned. My breeders are of Randy's offspring, direct from him and I too have some of Wandas pp leos out on loan in Florida with other breeders. None of my have ever, EVER been with any other leopards or contaminated and mine and Randy's look 100% like Leopards original post. Also, I may not trust Wanda on pink genetics, but trust Nick 100% and also can tell Wanda's animals are Pardalis.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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Homopus signatus signatus versus homopus signatus cafer for example are the same tiny species of padloper. But the H.S?cafer resides in a specific tiny region all by itself and has darker coloration but genetically has proven to mutate and become a subspecies.

Pssamobates is the same thing. P. Tentorius oculifer versus P. tentorius veroxxi are very very similar but reside in specific regions overlapping one another but genetically test as different splayed trees in the haplotype analysis thusly giving them a difference classification.
f

Off topic for the thread. There are three species currently recognized in Psammobates. P. oculifera, P. geometricus, and P. tentorius. Currently the only species with recognized subspecies is P. tentorius. Current/ongoing field research suggest that the P. tentorius group may indeed have more than three subspecies. At one point P. tentorius was a complex of over 30 subspecies, but that has long been replaced with the current accepted three subspecies.

The two "subspecies" of Homopus signatus have been recognized as but one species, with a regional color selection based on rocks these small cryptic tortoises hide among.

Have I missed a pub that indicates that P. oculifera is a subspecies of tentorius, us armchair systemic-ists are wondering?
 

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Tom, Randy was extremely kind to you and only sent you double dotted ones with perfect shells. When I sell wholesale groups, I am not as kind as Randy and I do include mis-scute and or single dotted animals. It is honestly really east to tell the pp and pb apart. Maybe with a little more time and if you start breeding them in the future, you will understand more clearly and will also be producing some single dotted hatchlings as well. I have seen, held and sold 1000 - 1200 pp leo hatchlings in the past 4-6 years, have been to Randy's facility, speak with him on a weekly basis, produce my own pp leos and some of my offspring are single dotted like I mentioned. My breeders are of Randy's offspring, direct from him and I too have some of Wandas pp leos out on loan in Florida with other breeders. None of my have ever, EVER been with any other leopards or contaminated and mine and Randy's look 100% like Leopards original post. Also, I may not trust Wanda on pink genetics, but trust Nick 100% and also can tell Wanda's animals are Pardalis.

Randy didn't send me anything, and he wasn't any kinder to me than he was anyone else. I went to his place and hand picked more than 70 hatchlings myself and all of them had double dots, including the ones I didn't buy.

Thanks for the condescending tone, but I can tell the difference between mixed hatchlings and pure Gpp just fine right now.
 

Az tortoise compound

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No Tom, I was not being condescending at all bro. I was just referring to your post and agreeing with you. -

Tom's post - I'll be very curious now to see what mine throw. My females have had no contact with any males except their double dotted counterparts from the same source and that was when they were less than a year and a half old, and they have never been out of my care, so if mine also throw babies that look like yours, I will be eating some crow.

Randy actually called me this morning. I asked him if his ears were ringing? Tom, just give him a call.
My adults like yours too have double dots, came from the same source and mine throw single, double, no dot and everything in between hatchlings.


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tortadise

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Off topic for the thread. There are three species currently recognized in Psammobates. P. oculifera, P. geometricus, and P. tentorius. Currently the only species with recognized subspecies is P. tentorius. Current/ongoing field research suggest that the P. tentorius group may indeed have more than three subspecies. At one point P. tentorius was a complex of over 30 subspecies, but that has long been replaced with the current accepted three subspecies.

The two "subspecies" of Homopus signatus have been recognized as but one species, with a regional color selection based on rocks these small cryptic tortoises hide among.

Have I missed a pub that indicates that P. oculifera is a subspecies of tentorius, us armchair systemic-ists are wondering?
I'll find it and post it in a new thread.
 

Tom

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To get back to the OP and the original question:

I would not buy those single dotted babies as "pure" SA leopards. They do not like the the true "pure" SA leopards that I have seen produced by verifiable, reliable sources. Having a single dot, or triple dots, or oddly shaped dots in one or two vertebral scutes is a totally normal Gpp trait. Having a single dot in every vertebral scute on 8 out of 14 babies, is not.

If at some point in the future I learn that I am wrong about this, I will publicly apologize, but this is how I see it based on everything that I know.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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http://sarca.adu.org.za/

Even import records do not really tell the story of source. How about we look at real animals with known locality data verified by the scientists who do the field work in southern Africa. That people repeat poor information does not make them the perpetrators of falsehoods. It means they are repeated what they were told. Honest people repeat bad information all the time.

This web site, which I've nodded to before, shows location and images of all reptile and amphibian species of southern Africa. Sort out the species in the map section and then look at the images of the individuals found in the field and who the scientists was that verified the record. You will see great variability in those leos from the more southern western portion of the range, which tends to back-up historical accounts of European Farmers who have said they brought Leos to this part of the continent from elsewhere because they liked them. It is not a uniform distribution of phenotype traits for the region, it is even more variable than most other parts of the range of leos.

I saw extreme variability from the southern Karoo to Beaufort West (mid Karoo) , I saw juveniles and ancient adults and young adults. No way to determine dot count on the scutes when they are old and worn. Shell shape was very variable. From VW bug shape, that sorta compound carapacial hump, to single symmetrical hump. Flared marginals over rear legs to straight down and no flare.

If indeed the European Farmers are telling it as it is, then the southern/western portion of the range is the MOST mutt like population of Africa, and people and nature have had a short term (few hundred years to in the wild, to a few generation in captivity in north America) to select for traits.

All that does not matter if when you are looking at many neonates and you like the ones with many dots per scute and you value them more, well that's great, buy them.

At A SDTTS meeting Jerry Fife showed an image of what he said was a neonate Ethiopian leo, and it had three dots on the first vertebral scute. Without specifically stating that the three dots were a specific variant trait, he sure did intimate that was the case. Now many people may even think it must be so. However there are too many other images of Ethiopian neonates out there now that show this is not a reliable visible trait of that most northern population.

Buy what you like, pay what you think is fare. Hell, I sure tell you now If I get neonates with four dots per scute they will be offered at $500 each, cause that;s what were talking about yeah? The money associated with visible traits.
 

Baoh

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This South African leopard is a nice example of one that bucks the stereotype purported by some in the US as a matter of (observationally false) universality.
interestingSAleopard.jpg
 

diamondbp

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I found the juvie pictures of the adults that Jason currently owns from the username Edna pictured on PAGE 10 of the 2010 thread http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/2010-south-african-leopard-thread.20528/page-10

The markings match up exactly. I was pretty surprised when I stumbled upon it and matched up the markings. So those two adults are no doubt "Maggie and Molly" from the 2010 batch. I just thought I would share what I discovered.
 

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jtrux

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So, Maggie and Molly, who were raised by Tom, are the two Gpp referenced in post #4?

Then in post #5 Tom said that they were not pure.

What's the deal, Tom?
 

Tom

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So, Maggie and Molly, who were raised by Tom, are the two Gpp referenced in post #4?

Then in post #5 Tom said that they were not pure.

What's the deal, Tom?

They were not raised by me, they were sold as hatchlings.

I did not say they were not pure, I said they don't look like mine, and they don't. I also said I had no way to verify it based on a pic. I based my conclusion on the babies they were throwing more than anything else.

I also said that if they are throwing babies that don't look like what they looked like when they are babies, then there is likely some other genetic material mixed in, and I still stand by that.

This all demonstrates, yet again, that not much can be told by showing someone a pic of an adult on the Internet.
 

diamondbp

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I just want to point out to everyone, and especially @Tom, that I didn't post the pictures of the juvies for anything other than for us to see their original scute patterns and that it may be possible for true SA adults to produce babies with patterns that differ from what they had as babies. It wasn't to point fingers at Tom. I have the utmost respect for Tom and many members in this forum and I know Tom is as genuine of a person as I've ever spoken with.

But if it really is the case that SA leopards can produce babies with patterns differing from their own as babies (which I do believe happens) then that piece of information could be of value to all of us "future breeders" of SA leopards. I don't remember where I heard this, but I heard somewhere that 2nd 3rd generations can tend to lose the "uniqueness" of the original wild breeders babies. I may be very wrong on that since I haven't produce 2nd or 3rd generations on anything other than gulf coast box turtles and some common water turtles.

We see the same thing happen in people sometimes. If two brown haired people, both having recessive genes for red hair, have children together there is a good chance that they may have a few red headed children. I don't see why that couldn't be possible in SA leopards depending on which individuals are paired up and the possible recessive genes they have.

I'm fully convinced that my "spotless SA leopard" that I purchased from Andy at ATC is truly a full blooded PP. It shows every indication of being pure other than the typical double/triple dot pattern. Now I purchased her knowing that down the road when she begins producing babies that she may produce mostly "untypical" SA babies, but that didn't bother me because I believe in representing the entire spectrum of SA leopards despite what the USA tortoise market is used to. It'll be quite interesting to see what she produces when that time comes.

Anyway I just want to assure Tom and other of my intentions on being part of this discussion. And I also don't want this discussion to hinder Jason's ability to sell his babies. I do believe they are pure and I don't believe Jason would mix his pure PP female with anything other than his PP male. It just wouldn't make sense for him to do so from any standpoint.

It's for the love and understanding of the unique variations involved with this species. It's truly a special species in my eyes.
 

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