Evidence for animal personalities in two Brazilian tortoises and insights for their conservation

[jsheffield]

A paper on the personalities of two species of South American Tortoises, Redfoot and Yellowfoot Tortoises. I found it interesting and would love to see the testing repeated across other species insofar as it would be reproducible.

personalitypaper.pdf

drive.google.com

I was able to access the paper with the permission of the authors, so feel that sharing a link is in keeping with their wishes to disseminate the information.

Jamie

 

[ZenHerper]

Jamie - would you post a title with these links? Some of us don't use g**gle.

 

[jsheffield]

Jamie - would you post a title with these links? Some of us don't use g**gle.

Evidence for animal personalities in two Brazilian tortoises (Chelonoidis
denticulatus and Chelonoidis carbonarius) and insights for their conservation

 

[ZenHerper]

Thanks!

 

[SuzanneZ]

A paper on the personalities of two species of South American Tortoises, Redfoot and Yellowfoot Tortoises. I found it interesting and would love to see the testing repeated across other species insofar as it would be reproducible.

personalitypaper.pdf

drive.google.com

I was able to access the paper with the permission of the authors, so feel that sharing a link is in keeping with their wishes to disseminate the information.

Jamie

I want to read this but just can't enlarge it enough.

 

[jeff kushner]

I want to read this but just can't enlarge it enough.

That's cause you're old like me.....get #3.0s, they will get you there............in the meantime hold down your CTRL button on the left side of the keyboard while rolling your mouse button upwards....it will make it big, just don't forget to resize it to 100% when you are done...OR EVERYTHING will be big!


The study is going to take another read.....an awful lot of variables so I want to see how they grouped and weighted them since the results relay on that.

Very good....and J, thanks for posting

 

[SuzanneZ]

That's cause you're old like me.....get #3.0s, they will get you there............in the meantime hold down your CTRL button on the left side of the keyboard while rolling your mouse button upwards....it will make it big, just don't forget to resize it to 100% when you are done...OR EVERYTHING will be big!


The study is going to take another read.....an awful lot of variables so I want to see how they grouped and weighted them since the results relay on that.

Very good....and J, thanks for posting

Yay.

 

[Wayfarin]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that red-eared sliders have individual personalities observed by their owners.
Some are more predatory than others, for example.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that red-eared sliders have individual personalities observed by their owners.
Some are more predatory than others, for example.

My Redfoot definitely act differently from one to another.
Especially the males.
They always surprise me

 

[Maggie3fan]

I don't usually post on threads like this...but I believe I have had experiences with tortoises that were out of the norm...my computer recently crashed and I have lost over 1000 pictures so bear with me...
I moved to Oregon 19 years ago and brought a small Sulcata tortoise with me named Bob. He was my first tortoise and I adored him...I took him around to schools, Petco, Petsmart, Courthouse Park, Avery Park and the homeless camp down by the skate park. Bob was in 3 newspapers and on TV twice. He was well known and very popular thru out the Willamette Valley in Central Oregon...during those years Bob grew to 100+ pounds, he was your average common Sulcata, except that he was so well socialized he had almost human qualities. I literally spent most of my day with Bob...I taught him how to play soccer using a 5 gallon bucket...I'd throw it toward him and he would ram it and push it back at me...he used to be requested at Pet Days at OSU every year, he'd just walk around visiting with people and giving kids rides. He walked along behind me like an obedience trained dog at 'heel'. Oregon is a small state and I'd guess the average Oregonian has never had the opportunity to see a Sulcata as big as Bob was. So if you got to see Bob, you had to take a handout about taking out native turtles out of the "wild", and general care of common torts. I have tried to do the same thing with other Sulcata that I have had and they just weren't social and most had a herd mentality. Mary K has a fairly outgoing personality, but only with me. If strangers are around she won't come out of her shell. I do believe Bob was a horse of a different color and most who met him felt his charisma. I can't retrieve most of my pictures...but I'm hoping a moderator might find Bob's picture and post it here for me...I believe there are very different tortoises like Bob, but they still take training and patience, and l believe if you have a giant species "pet" tortoise with that training they will/can learn their boundaries and be somewhat easier to handle...Bob followed my wiggling fingers, so I didn't mostly need a strong person to lift Bob...I did need a neighbor to lift Bob into the back of the IROC, as much as I have written about Bob it is still hard to explain to people who have never read the Bob stories what he was like...he was different in so many ways...he died in 2015 at 17 years old...he had a bladder stone as big as a softball...my experience with Bob has not nor mostly will not ever be repeated with another tortoise. I was so fortunate to have had those years with him...

 

[ecachuh]

I don't usually post on threads like this...but I believe I have had experiences with tortoises that were out of the norm...my computer recently crashed and I have lost over 1000 pictures so bear with me...
I moved to Oregon 19 years ago and brought a small Sulcata tortoise with me named Bob. He was my first tortoise and I adored him...I took him around to schools, Petco, Petsmart, Courthouse Park, Avery Park and the homeless camp down by the skate park. Bob was in 3 newspapers and on TV twice. He was well known and very popular thru out the Willamette Valley in Central Oregon...during those years Bob grew to 100+ pounds, he was your average common Sulcata, except that he was so well socialized he had almost human qualities. I literally spent most of my day with Bob...I taught him how to play soccer using a 5 gallon bucket...I'd throw it toward him and he would ram it and push it back at me...he used to be requested at Pet Days at OSU every year, he'd just walk around visiting with people and giving kids rides. He walked along behind me like an obedience trained dog at 'heel'. Oregon is a small state and I'd guess the average Oregonian has never had the opportunity to see a Sulcata as big as Bob was. So if you got to see Bob, you had to take a handout about taking out native turtles out of the "wild", and general care of common torts. I have tried to do the same thing with other Sulcata that I have had and they just weren't social and most had a herd mentality. Mary K has a fairly outgoing personality, but only with me. If strangers are around she won't come out of her shell. I do believe Bob was a horse of a different color and most who met him felt his charisma. I can't retrieve most of my pictures...but I'm hoping a moderator might find Bob's picture and post it here for me...I believe there are very different tortoises like Bob, but they still take training and patience, and l believe if you have a giant species "pet" tortoise with that training they will/can learn their boundaries and be somewhat easier to handle...Bob followed my wiggling fingers, so I didn't mostly need a strong person to lift Bob...I did need a neighbor to lift Bob into the back of the IROC, as much as I have written about Bob it is still hard to explain to people who have never read the Bob stories what he was like...he was different in so many ways...he died in 2015 at 17 years old...he had a bladder stone as big as a softball...my experience with Bob has not nor mostly will not ever be repeated with another tortoise. I was so fortunate to have had those years with him...

That's the sweetest story. I can definitely picture you and Bob hanging out together, understandimg each other. Y'all had an amazing connection. 💕

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I have got to give that study a good read. My Russian tortoise is very out going and used to humans. I don't know how much of this is part of his personality, but here are some weird stuff that he does and I didn't except him to do:

When someone walks up to his enclosure he always peers up to see what is going on. I have gotten him used to coming up to me when I tap the ramp in his closure. When I place my hand on the ramp he will walk on top of my hand and is ready to be handled. There is a clear difference to when I "forcefully" pick him up he will wiggle in my hand and kick. But when done this way that he climbs on my hand himself he will just calmly float through the air, all limbs out In his previous home he was let free roam the house. He would climb up to his enclosure walls and scratch to get a lift out when he saw a human. Then when he wanted to go back to his enclosure he would do the same on the outside of his enclosure.

Now he has a fenced off area outside his enclosure (freshly vacuumed, with a branch, a hide and a waterdish) that I let him explore when I am cleaning his enclosure. Probably because his past, he seems to know where the door is and will sometimes spend some time walking up and down in front of the door and trying to push it open. He is obviously too small to push it open when the door is closed properly

When I hold out food to him, he will run out to get it. Sometimes when I sit on the floor in his area he will come up to me and climb on my lap, he does this with some of my family members too.

When he first moved to his new enclosure, he was a bit more shy for a week or two, often hissing and pulling his head in. Back then he also slept inside his shell. Now days, there is almost nothing that I do that would lead to him retrieving into his shell. He sleeps with his legs out, and during the day he sometimes sleeps on the hot side of his terrarium with his head and legs all stretched out. Hi will still sometimes hiss, but more rarely. Now that I do his least favorite activities (that is soaking and weighing him) he will rather kick and scratch trying to escape than hiss and hide in his shell.

I think this are all part of his personality, part learned behavior. Even though he is probably wild caught (don't know for sure) I don't think he would survive in the wild anymore. He is not tame of course, but he is way too used to humans