Chaco Chaco

tortadise

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Some snap shots. Just love these guys. Fingers crossed on the egg. Has about 5-6 more months to go though.

Chiclet (male)
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Chiquita (female)
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And Chico (male) he is a different locale Chaco known as petersoni which is the smallest of the three sub species.
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Millerlite

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Very awesome speices! How long is the incubation time? Seems long! Hopefully you have fertile ones

Kyle
 

katfinlou

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Sorry to hijack but how can you tell its fertile? What do you need to look for? Ive had a Hermanns incubating for 5 days and don't know if it's fertile or not
 

tortadise

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Sorry to hijack but how can you tell its fertile? What do you need to look for? Ive had a Hermanns incubating for 5 days and don't know if it's fertile or not
Developing embryo growing in mass. 5 days even for a very short incubating species like hermanni is too early. Snap a photo or jot in your memory what the egg looks like when candled from that day and check it again in 2 weeks. You should see the embryo grow in size and veining.
 

Turtlepete

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Awesome, love seeing those guys…..Chaco eggs have gotta' take some serious patience with their incubation period. A full year, haha.

About the sub-species, is it taxonomically "correct" to call it a sub-species? I've been wondering if donoborossi, petersi and chilensis were indeed different sub-species, or just regional variance, or whatever. What ssp. are the other two?
 

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I would love to see a lot more of these guys around. I hope your egg hatches.
 

Millerlite

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I agree tom, very cool species would like to see more success for them. Seems like a tough species to breed, from what I heard tho, not the toughest species to keep. Didn't you have a few tom?

Kyle
 

tortadise

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Awesome, love seeing those guys…..Chaco eggs have gotta' take some serious patience with their incubation period. A full year, haha.

About the sub-species, is it taxonomically "correct" to call it a sub-species? I've been wondering if donoborossi, petersi and chilensis were indeed different sub-species, or just regional variance, or whatever. What ssp. are the other two?
They haven't concluded them to be a full subspecies yet. But regionally. There kinda like the leopard. Phylogeographically different but still the same species. There is definitely a major difference of the three. The donoborosi are very large and are only found in the southern region of Argentinian and Patagonia. They are very dark brown to blackish color and live in volcanic rocky areas only eating specific plants. Chilensis is the more common in the middle range of Argentina and get medium sized found in grasslands and mixed arid bush wilds. Petersoni stay very small and venture in some of Bolivia and even Brazil. They are tough to keep. Many people misunderstand arid species and husbandry. Very hot and dry is an easy way to kill them. Very hot and semi humid works very well. But the temps need drop drastically at night. Constant heat is never a good thing with these guys, they're a lot like the Egyptians in retaining moisture. They will hold there necks up and tilt head back to drink when you spray them down.
 

Turtlepete

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The Turtle Conservancy/Eric Goode did a documentary on Chaco's in situ that is pretty awesome. All three sub-species/locality's(?) are shown, and you can definitely see the difference.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of substrate do you use with these guys? I'm always curious what substrate people use with arid tortoises. Cypress mulch is so common but I've always thought it might produce undesirable amounts of humidity.
 

tortadise

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The Turtle Conservancy/Eric Goode did a documentary on Chaco's in situ that is pretty awesome. All three sub-species/locality's(?) are shown, and you can definitely see the difference.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of substrate do you use with these guys? I'm always curious what substrate people use with arid tortoises. Cypress mulch is so common but I've always thought it might produce undesirable amounts of humidity.
These guys benefit from humidity. They will not drink from any water source. Only when sprayed down they will drink by holding the heads straight up and tilted back. At least the way I have them set up. It's a mix between peat moss, sand, decomposed granite and some mulch mixed in the bunch. Arids are highly misunderstood by husbandry practices. The extreme arid species like Pyxis,pssamobates, Kleinmanni, chilensis, homopus signatus/cafer, even travancorica are quite exposed to extreme moisture and humidity. During the evening and early morning the landscape fogs and moisture fills the air, as well with succulents and plant material weeping dew. But during the late morning until sundown it dries out and gets warm. Therm regulation is a key for these species. So that changes up husbandry for them. Cool at night misting in the morning then nice and toasty during the day with some Dandre spray downs.
 

Turtlepete

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These guys benefit from humidity. They will not drink from any water source. Only when sprayed down they will drink by holding the heads straight up and tilted back. At least the way I have them set up. It's a mix between peat moss, sand, decomposed granite and some mulch mixed in the bunch. Arids are highly misunderstood by husbandry practices. The extreme arid species like Pyxis,pssamobates, Kleinmanni, chilensis, homopus signatus/cafer, even travancorica are quite exposed to extreme moisture and humidity. During the evening and early morning the landscape fogs and moisture fills the air, as well with succulents and plant material weeping dew. But during the late morning until sundown it dries out and gets warm. Therm regulation is a key for these species. So that changes up husbandry for them. Cool at night misting in the morning then nice and toasty during the day with some Dandre spray downs.

Very interesting about them not drinking. Very odd as well! Thanks so much for the info. Sounds like some arid snakes. I often wonder if I could manage to keep them outside here in FL…..The humidity is always so high though. Even now in the winter its 60%. In full sun they would get that early morning mist, and then very hot as the day goes on, but the humidity would never really dry out. And, except for in the winter, there is no real drop in temperature at night. Maybe 10 degrees at the most. Probably too tropical. I was told once though that there care would be similar to our native gopher tortoises….Hmm..

Here's another question, how much of grazers are these guys? An anapsid article (there is little online info on this species it seems) about someone who had 20-or-so of them claimed they were grazers and mainly ate grasses and weeds, and would eat dried hay as well.
 

Tom

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These guys benefit from humidity. They will not drink from any water source. Only when sprayed down they will drink by holding the heads straight up and tilted back. At least the way I have them set up. It's a mix between peat moss, sand, decomposed granite and some mulch mixed in the bunch. Arids are highly misunderstood by husbandry practices. The extreme arid species like Pyxis,pssamobates, Kleinmanni, chilensis, homopus signatus/cafer, even travancorica are quite exposed to extreme moisture and humidity. During the evening and early morning the landscape fogs and moisture fills the air, as well with succulents and plant material weeping dew. But during the late morning until sundown it dries out and gets warm. Therm regulation is a key for these species. So that changes up husbandry for them. Cool at night misting in the morning then nice and toasty during the day with some Dandre spray downs.

This whole post is music to my ears Kelly. Why is this simple concept so difficult for so many people to grasp. Yes its dry in the natural environment for part of the day or part of the year, but the evidence against keeping them all dry all the time in captivity is SO overwhelming. Seems so obvious from where I'm sitting.
 

tortadise

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Very interesting about them not drinking. Very odd as well! Thanks so much for the info. Sounds like some arid snakes. I often wonder if I could manage to keep them outside here in FL…..The humidity is always so high though. Even now in the winter its 60%. In full sun they would get that early morning mist, and then very hot as the day goes on, but the humidity would never really dry out. And, except for in the winter, there is no real drop in temperature at night. Maybe 10 degrees at the most. Probably too tropical. I was told once though that there care would be similar to our native gopher tortoises….Hmm..

Here's another question, how much of grazers are these guys? An anapsid article (there is little online info on this species it seems) about someone who had 20-or-so of them claimed they were grazers and mainly ate grasses and weeds, and would eat dried hay as well.
Yeah they are grazzers for sure. They prefer cactus over everything else though. You can see the last photo she has a pampas grass piece sticking out of her mouth. This is dead and they still eat it.
 

tortadise

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This whole post is music to my ears Kelly. Why is this simple concept so difficult for so many people to grasp. Yes its dry in the natural environment for part of the day or part of the year, but the evidence against keeping them all dry all the time in captivity is SO overwhelming. Seems so obvious from where I'm sitting.
I don't know. But many Egyptians and chacos perish because of it's misunderstood method,
 

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