Balboa...Carnivorous...Leopards...

[Edna]

Backstory: I got my two G.p.ps from Tom, and shortly thereafter Balboa started the "Baby Tortoises are way more carnivorous than we think" thread. It was an interesting theory, and I set up the leos' second (current) enclosure with an eye toward giving them some opportunities to be carnivorous. The enclosure has mostly cypress mulch, with some areas of organic potting soil, live mosses, 11 live plants in pots, some rock areas, and a large humid hide. I added about 7 nightcrawlers, springtails and some other little bugs came in with the soil, plants, bark, etc. I wanted to add sow bugs, but it was too late in the fall to find any so no go. I've seen the torts show an interest in the now ginormous nightcrawlers, but no bites.
Along with the plants came a population of slugs (garden size for here, maybe a little over an inch long, not the real biggies), which I have largely ignored. Just a couple of days ago I was wondering what sort of critter would enjoy eating those slugs.
This afternoon I was watching the torts for a few moments, and I saw that a slug was on a plant pot right beside one of my torts. She looked at it and took a bite, then another bite, then finished it off. I had the impression she knew exactly what it was, had done this before. Next step for me will be to offer some smaller worms, not so large and intimidating as the nightcrawlers.
I know it's just another anecdotal piece of evidence in favor of the carnivorous tort theory, but I had to share.

 

[coreyc]

Very interesting thanks for sharing

 

[Balboa]

LOL too cool Edna,

I have to admit I find it strange that they won't mess with the nightcrawlers, guess that's strike one against the theory (though I still think the idea has merit )

To be honest I'd think nightcrawlers would be a little more palatable than slugs, not that I've tried either yet myself.

 

[goodxy]

nice observation!

 

[John]

so if one leopard tortoise eats a slug does it mean they all will or should?will they eat things that are bad for them if offered?what nutritional requierments are met feeding live insects?i have observed that my leopards will eat strawberries all day long,but i know this is not good for the tortoise,so technically we can not rely on the tortoises ability too regulate its own nutritional intake,based on that i would imagine that baby leo's in the wild consume all kinds of stuff including insects some on purpose some by mistake.like most animals they are born into an enviornment they can not control,some will survive some will not,i have seen in the case of box turtles specimens that were born disformed survive yet found perfectly healthy looking one;s dead for no obvious reason.so in captivity is diet so critical for some because they are genetically weak and would not have survived in the wild?I believe only the strong survive for good reason.I have seen for myself that some animals will thrive with no fuss and others have too be babied along.so i don't believe that diet is a mystery,there has been plenty published as far as what they eat this data was collected by analyzing stool samples from torts throughout there range.I feel the genetic pool is more important here if weak torts are being bred than weak torts you will have,even if the parents were coddled along as hatchlings and made too survive,their offspring could still be weak and prone too failure.anyway im done rambling for the time being....john

 

[Madkins007]

Squamata- The thing is that there is little published research from wild hatchlings. We don't find them often, and can only rarely study them in depth.

Very few animals in the world eat the same thing as a neonate, hatchling, baby, whatever that they would eat even a short time later. Baby Red-ear Sliders eat mostly insects and invertebrates and slowly shift over to a more herbivorous diet. Mammals, of course, have their milk. Many snakes that focus on mammalian prey as adults start off luring and eating insects. Birds, tadpoles, caterpillars, maggots, and more all eat different things early in life.

Balboa combined that concept with the difficulty we have starting healthy, SMOOTH tortoises that in nature do not get misted all of the time and are smooth anyway, with some thinking about the reclusive lifestyle of the baby tortoise and opined that they may well be very insectivorous at that stage, and this makes a lot of sense.

Support for the idea is showing up in spurts and dribbles. A comment on a French site, some comments about Desert Tort hatchling behaviors, field observations, keeper observations, etc. Many people have commented that hatchling torts and turtles seem to try to eat things in the incubator substrate- which in the wild would be full of invertebrates.

Torts have relatively free access to invertebrates in the wild, so there does not seem to be a problem offering them in a limited way. They would only rarely find strawberries in the wild, so offering them as a dietary choice is less logical. As for the nutrient levels in bugs, the information is available online at places like http://www.house-of-reptiles.com/feederinvertebrates.pdf.

I think that a lot of the resistance to the theory is the old idea that protein causes pyramiding, which has been pretty well debunked.

In my own mind, a comment by Andy Highfield is another key element. Baby tortoises have very flexible shells to fit in the shell. If they start to grow much before the shell has a chance to catch up, it may be causing some of the problems we see.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Interesting.