discussion on different races of RF tortoises

[N2TORTS]

RE: Would you spend $5000 on a Galapagos tortoise hatchling?

I agree you are not selling any of your hypos as cherryheads but you have your jr one listed as such. In the thread I referenced, you admitted those are from a hypo breeding with cherry. That is not a cherryhead hypo, it is a mix. While your juniors may have the spurs, that is still not proof of a pure cherryheads. If you are skeptical of any "pure" cherryheads then why bother flogging them as cherries?

thats what they were sold to me as .. from suppose to be a reputable breeder....I stated what was relayed to me ....Joe Terry ... to John . to me . Now .. Im not sure if I asked them if they were a mix .. and I'm not sure they even know .. as a lot of his hypos got disbursed ..Wanda and Joe ..Nick up in NY...ect...
woud " MIX CHERRY HYPO " tittle better suit your thread ... ?
Once again they are not my breeders...

JD, My question is why would you label a thread with false information?

The thread clearly says "Junior Hypo Cherryheads"
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/post-694066.html

Jesus Christ ... Now your in on it ...
HERE YOU GUYS! ... THIS IS WHY ... MAYBE YOU SHOULD ASK JOHN

GET OVER IT!!!!!!
-----Original Message-----
From: John Heidecker <***********>
To: awsofine2 <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, Feb 9, 2013 8:00 am
Subject: RE: Hypos

Yes- paypal to this address. I am at work but have a couple shots on my phone that I will send now. Remind you that the male is unrelated to any hypo cherry head in US because its Mother died just after laying her first clutch after import into US and this one was the only surviving offspring. All 3 are in fine health and were kept in great care with my friend Nathan in NY prior to him getting out of the hobby.

Thanks,
John

 

[Madkins007]

5 years ago ... One kind of redfoot (although mention of Different " races" ... I like that term so much better than species for this matter and that makes sense)... Now 5 are noted ... actually the list of Synonyms is quite extensive.

Testudo carbonaria SPIX 1824
Testudo boiei WAGLER 1833
Geochelone (Chelonoidis) boiei - FITZINGER 1835
Geochelone (Chelonoidis) tabulata - FITZINGER 1835 (partim)
Testudo carbonaria — DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1835: 99
Testudo (Chelonoidis) boiei - TSCHUDI 1845
Testudo Carbonaria — DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1854: 220
Testudo tabulata - BOULENGER 1889 (partim)
Geochelone carbonaria — WILLIAMS 1960
Testudo carbonaria - WERMUTH & MERTENS 1961
Geochelone (Chelonoidis) carbonaria - PRITCHARD 1967
Testudo (Chelonoidis) carbonaria - WERMUTH & MERTENS 1977
Chelonoidis carbonaria - BOUR 1980
Geochelone carbonaria - ERNST & BARBOUR 1989
Geochelone carbonaria — SCHWARTZ & HENDERSON 1991: 169
Chelonoidis carbonaria - CEI 1993
Geochelone carbonaria — GORZULA & SEÑARIS 1999
Geochelone carbonaria — ZIEGLER et al. 2002
Chelonoidis carbonaria — MCCORD & JOSEPH-OUNI 2004
Chelonoidis carbonaria — GERLACH (pers. comm.)
Chelonoidis carbonaria — LE et al. 2006
Geochelone carbonaria — DALTRY 2007
Chelonoidis carbonaria — MCNISH 2011
Two other points, the " inbetween areas was the Key to the whole thing...where does that end and begin?" and the inbetweeners? I was not telling you or anyone else where I think it is ..I would imagine this like favo teams in baseball I guess you take sides... but obviously from all the different papers presented there has been field information from all sorts of parties … then why all the different results?

If there was a One time shipment of particular animals of unusual nature ...wouldn’t they be more likely to be all related? And if so dominate in one area than more than likely all of those should be related ...no?
So I would conclude there several factors involved which is still being learned.


Look on page 172 of the Redfoot Threads....come on Mark ...really? I think any one signing on to this forum can read it ?


The comments about "Look like Cherries" well .. I guess that’s an opinion ...would you like to evaluate the Parents and tell me they are crosses too? In that case the person is wrong . They are Northerns‘, all 3 of the adults....who bred, laid eggs and hatched out some incredible looking babies, multiple times too! it's that.....plain and simple. And would be a wrong assumption .

---

and your right ... the Galaps are more closely related to Chacos than to red- or yellow-footeds. Well there was some more convo about it .. I believe Flint was adding to it .. as I'm just learning more about the unique species myself , but I think it got all erased. Again I wasn't tell anyone they ARE related for a fact ... just reading .. and sharing .

---

I'm sorry, JD- I am not quite sure what some of your replies are referring to.

Synonyms- that is a typical list showing how the red-footeds have been renamed and redefined over time. Many of the earlier names were from when ALL turtles and tortoises were Testudo, others are from when yellows and reds were considered the same species. This really does not indicate that there may not be different species hidden in the group.

Inbetweeners- this is an ongoing problem in a lot of species, but I am not sure that it is really an issue. Here in Omaha, we have intergrades between two species of leopard frogs, and two species of chorus frogs- but that does not really change the fact that there are two primary populations.

If 'inbetweeners' ARE an issue, then it is even more important to be careful what populations we let breed in captivity. Using red-footeds as an example, there are possibly 5 populations- A, B, C, D, and E. They are arranged so there are barriers between them in two groups- A, B, and C are widely separated from D and E.

So- fuzzy borders might get us A/B crosses, B/C's, and D/E's, but they would not make A/E's, or even A/C's. The A/B cross is natural and is a result of changing conditions- population pressure, changing habitat, etc. A A/D cross is unnatural, and may be reinforcing terribly incompatible genes.
....

I don't know what the 'look at page 172' comment related to- was Carl's private email to you printed out there? It is often difficult to follow your conversations- you use partial sentences and fragments so often that it can be really hard to follow. That may be part of the problem in some of this debate- thinking you are saying one thing when you intended us to understand something else.

....

I may have misunderstood you about the galap/red relationship- if so, that was at least partly my bad- but it may also have been an accidental result of the way this thread got chopped up to get the original thread back on track. (Or... it may have been because you were using your form of 'shorthand' and thought we would understand it more clearly than at least some of us did.)

 

[CharlieM]

RE: Would you spend $5000 on a Galapagos tortoise hatchling?

I DO ?..... YA better check with the folks who buys them ...

---

Show me an Ad where I Sell my Hypos as Cherry Heads …You and Carl Make no sense
Matter of fact read the darn breeders list on this forum!


THESE ARE NORTHERN HYPO REDFOOTS …NO MIX .. THEY WERE IMPORTS!…..






Here are the JR Cherry Hypos … Not of breeding age …

---

There is no mixing ...... if you look...
Reds which include ... 1 male Hypo
2 Female HYpo's
3 Female Redfoots

The CHerry Side ...
is .... 3 Males
and 9 Females

The JR Cherrys along with other torts I own .. have different areas as well

---

Ten years ago and way before this forum was around.... when I started breeding redfoots and cherries ...still there was seperation....

---

---

---

Half-n-half Hypo genes?

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-51583.html

Just sayin...

 

[N2TORTS]

5 years ago ... One kind of redfoot (although mention of Different " races" ... I like that term so much better than species for this matter and that makes sense)... Now 5 are noted ... actually the list of Synonyms is quite extensive.

Testudo carbonaria SPIX 1824
Testudo boiei WAGLER 1833
Geochelone (Chelonoidis) boiei - FITZINGER 1835
Geochelone (Chelonoidis) tabulata - FITZINGER 1835 (partim)
Testudo carbonaria — DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1835: 99
Testudo (Chelonoidis) boiei - TSCHUDI 1845
Testudo Carbonaria — DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1854: 220
Testudo tabulata - BOULENGER 1889 (partim)
Geochelone carbonaria — WILLIAMS 1960
Testudo carbonaria - WERMUTH & MERTENS 1961
Geochelone (Chelonoidis) carbonaria - PRITCHARD 1967
Testudo (Chelonoidis) carbonaria - WERMUTH & MERTENS 1977
Chelonoidis carbonaria - BOUR 1980
Geochelone carbonaria - ERNST & BARBOUR 1989
Geochelone carbonaria — SCHWARTZ & HENDERSON 1991: 169
Chelonoidis carbonaria - CEI 1993
Geochelone carbonaria — GORZULA & SEÑARIS 1999
Geochelone carbonaria — ZIEGLER et al. 2002
Chelonoidis carbonaria — MCCORD & JOSEPH-OUNI 2004
Chelonoidis carbonaria — GERLACH (pers. comm.)
Chelonoidis carbonaria — LE et al. 2006
Geochelone carbonaria — DALTRY 2007
Chelonoidis carbonaria — MCNISH 2011
Two other points, the " inbetween areas was the Key to the whole thing...where does that end and begin?" and the inbetweeners? I was not telling you or anyone else where I think it is ..I would imagine this like favo teams in baseball I guess you take sides... but obviously from all the different papers presented there has been field information from all sorts of parties … then why all the different results?

If there was a One time shipment of particular animals of unusual nature ...wouldn’t they be more likely to be all related? And if so dominate in one area than more than likely all of those should be related ...no?
So I would conclude there several factors involved which is still being learned.


Look on page 172 of the Redfoot Threads....come on Mark ...really? I think any one signing on to this forum can read it ?


The comments about "Look like Cherries" well .. I guess that’s an opinion ...would you like to evaluate the Parents and tell me they are crosses too? In that case the person is wrong . They are Northerns‘, all 3 of the adults....who bred, laid eggs and hatched out some incredible looking babies, multiple times too! it's that.....plain and simple. And would be a wrong assumption .

---

and your right ... the Galaps are more closely related to Chacos than to red- or yellow-footeds. Well there was some more convo about it .. I believe Flint was adding to it .. as I'm just learning more about the unique species myself , but I think it got all erased. Again I wasn't tell anyone they ARE related for a fact ... just reading .. and sharing .

---

I'm sorry, JD- I am not quite sure what some of your replies are referring to.

Synonyms- that is a typical list showing how the red-footeds have been renamed and redefined over time. Many of the earlier names were from when ALL turtles and tortoises were Testudo, others are from when yellows and reds were considered the same species. This really does not indicate that there may not be different species hidden in the group.

Inbetweeners- this is an ongoing problem in a lot of species, but I am not sure that it is really an issue. Here in Omaha, we have intergrades between two species of leopard frogs, and two species of chorus frogs- but that does not really change the fact that there are two primary populations.

If 'inbetweeners' ARE an issue, then it is even more important to be careful what populations we let breed in captivity. Using red-footeds as an example, there are possibly 5 populations- A, B, C, D, and E. They are arranged so there are barriers between them in two groups- A, B, and C are widely separated from D and E.

So- fuzzy borders might get us A/B crosses, B/C's, and D/E's, but they would not make A/E's, or even A/C's. The A/B cross is natural and is a result of changing conditions- population pressure, changing habitat, etc. A A/D cross is unnatural, and may be reinforcing terribly incompatible genes.
....

I don't know what the 'look at page 172' comment related to- was Carl's private email to you printed out there? It is often difficult to follow your conversations- you use partial sentences and fragments so often that it can be really hard to follow. That may be part of the problem in some of this debate- thinking you are saying one thing when you intended us to understand something else.

....

I may have misunderstood you about the galap/red relationship- if so, that was at least partly my bad- but it may also have been an accidental result of the way this thread got chopped up to get the original thread back on track. (Or... it may have been because you were using your form of 'shorthand' and thought we would understand it more clearly than at least some of us did.)

---

Mark I apologize for the “ hard to follow”. Last year I had a grand mal seizure…turns out I have epilepsy….at mid life . The meds suck , I don’t write all that well…..although I used to. I still from day to day suffer from focal seizures, and I know it disrupts my communicating abilities. Why I don’t go out much anymore , hence more time in here . Maybe that’s the key to this “debate” I’m not telling anyone a thing merely speculating on what I read , in the forums and other collectors I know …. That’s it! Doing research and trying to acquire top notch animals , for my own collection and breeding purposes . I have yet tried to manipulate anyone and if I did I apologize. , my hypos are from Germany , I have had them a long time 7 years to be exact….It Started 15 years ago with breeding my first RF’s….Cherries soon became popular so I added those to my collection. My dream however was one day to hatch my own hypo tortoises….my first one being in 2011. The so called mis labeled Cherry Hypos are Jr.s I bought , and went with what the person told me they were.
The page 172 or box …is under Redfoot Section. Start from the back and work forward. I didn’t write the article nor was it addressed to me. But I figured since I could see it on a regular thread page , so could everyone else thus being public info. I believe the thread title is Dwarf Cherry Heads. Being an old thread reading it and comparing to a lot of our current convo‘s it was merely for conversation… not even in the debate section. I just tried ( and the wrong one obviously) to point out the galaps themselves have “sub species“ or “ races“ …..which I had just learned

 

[immayo]

This conversation is very interesting to me since I plan on learning as much as I can for my future group of hypos. I know Jeff has his 1.2 group of Northern Hypos and then his smaller group of Jr. Cherry Hypos that he purchased from John. I also know that Nick has a couple larger Cherry Hypos he just purchased from John as well. Plus Nick has a few others in his collection. It seems to me the issue here is the validity of whether these Cherry Hypos are in fact cherries. Which brings me to another breeder. I know Wanda has several Hypos as well who she purchased from Joe Terry. What "breed" are hers because although I have been told they are Northers there has been some accusations made that not all Joe's hypos were pure either. We all want to breed these as close to their natural genes as possible it just seems difficult with so many unanswered questions floating around about actual purity and origins of the specimens currently available.

 

[TommyZ]

I find this convo quite facinating as well. Im only 6 months into my "tort wrangling", so id like to ask a question. Please pardon if its an ignorant question, but.... With all the technology we have, is there no way to just do some sort of DNA analysis to address these issues of species, subspecies, traits etc? Coming from a novice, it seems a simple way to answer these questions of purity and lineage. Is this possible, and if so why has it not been done? Thanks again ev1.

Tom

Sent from my SCH-I535 using TortForum mobile app

 

[Madkins007]

I find this convo quite facinating as well. Im only 6 months into my "tort wrangling", so id like to ask a question. Please pardon if its an ignorant question, but.... With all the technology we have, is there no way to just do some sort of DNA analysis to address these issues of species, subspecies, traits etc? Coming from a novice, it seems a simple way to answer these questions of purity and lineage. Is this possible, and if so why has it not been done? Thanks again ev1.

Tom

Sent from my SCH-I535 using TortForum mobile app

As far as I understand it...

Cost. The good tests are expensive, and they would have to have good stock to compare the results against.

Priorities. Pretty much every species is in some sort of stage of debate right now, so the resources for doing this in time and money are focused more on areas where they get more 'bang for their buck' Answering a nagging question for a relatively small population of hobbyists is not high on the agenda.

The process itself. DNA is not, by itself, enough in many cases. There are lots of things to take into consideration, the studies need to be published and peer reviewed, results have to be confirmed, etc.

---

(snip)
Mark I apologize for the “ hard to follow”. Last year I had a grand mal seizure…turns out I have epilepsy….at mid life . The meds suck , I don’t write all that well…..although I used to. I still from day to day suffer from focal seizures, and I know it disrupts my communicating abilities. Why I don’t go out much anymore , hence more time in here . Maybe that’s the key to this “debate” I’m not telling anyone a thing merely speculating on what I read , in the forums and other collectors I know ….

I am sorry to hear that. I work with lots of clients with brain injuries from multiple sources expressing a wide range of challenges (I do adaptive mobility and assistive technologies). You seem to be managing it pretty well- your style now is not that dissimilar from when you joined back in 2010.

It seems possible that some of the recent drama may be a certain lack of clarity- points that are obvious to you, but are not coming across clearly to us. The email from Carl is an example. If you copied it from an older thread- and had cited it as such- then it was indeed public knowledge. But you cited it as being a private email.

Heck, this also serves as a reminder to all of us to try to be careful to let people know when what we are saying is fact or our (or someone else's) opinions.

 

[CharlieM]

JD, I'm sorry if my posts have upset you. Nobody likes to be called out. I'm just trying to sort out the facts. Thank you for removing your last shocking response to me. (I had to google that acronym to see what it meant.) I get that you are passionate about your torts but your inconsistent posts and emotional responses confuse me.

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

I'm sorry but if you don't mind I'd like to ask just one question: why do people join theTFO (to learn I hope), but then they argue. I'm lost. Facts don't change with the tone of your voice