How Big do Indian Stars Really Get?

Markw84

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Just yesterday, one of our members posted a video I have added below. It is not in English, but you can see the report on a large group of Indian Stars that were confiscated from smugglers and held at a temple park until they could be sent to a conservation center.

Some of these stars are really big! Much bigger than any reference ever says an Indian Star can attain. These are stars from the northern end of their eastern India range - (Andhra Pradesh) . I have certainly heard of "larger" stars in the northwest (Gujarat) but these are huge!

By actual measurement of a captive specimen that is a breeding male that he says is not unusual, he reports it over 11" and 3789g. Many of the stars in this video are said to be (and certainly look) well over 15"

So how big do stars really get?? If this is so common to the locals in this area, why does none of the "scientific community" seem to know about it??

@kingsley @Tom @Neal @zovick @Sterant @8james8 @HermanniChris

 

HermanniChris

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Awesome animals.
I have Indians that measure 10” + here and they are not Sri Lankans.
My Sris are bigger and bulkier but the Indians are definitely neck and neck with most of them.
 

HermanniChris

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This photo isn’t great but it’s a comparison shot showing several animals I have here. You can see the Indian (top) is similar in size to the Sri Lankan (right). They are fully grown, producing animals while the Burmese star (left) and radiated (bottom) are not yet.
IMG_9485.jpg
 

Tom

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Just yesterday, one of our members posted a video I have added below. It is not in English, but you can see the report on a large group of Indian Stars that were confiscated from smugglers and held at a temple park until they could be sent to a conservation center.

Some of these stars are really big! Much bigger than any reference ever says an Indian Star can attain. These are stars from the northern end of their eastern India range - (Andhra Pradesh) . I have certainly heard of "larger" stars in the northwest (Gujarat) but these are huge!

By actual measurement of a captive specimen that is a breeding male that he says is not unusual, he reports it over 11" and 3789g. Many of the stars in this video are said to be (and certainly look) well over 15"

So how big do stars really get?? If this is so common to the locals in this area, why does none of the "scientific community" seem to know about it??

I speculate this is similar to the "legendary" Ethiopian leopards. We didn't really know about those until fairly recently.

This question is firmly in @kingsley realm of expertise!
 

Markw84

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Beautiful animals @HermanniChris And large stars for sure. But 15" stars still dwarf these.

Isn't is amazing how much the "scientific world" does NOT know about chelonians??

@Tom Yes - @kingsley is the first I thought of and hope he checks in here...
 

HermanniChris

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It’s true for sure. There are giants and dwarfs throughout many tortoise species and subspecies. Take the Sardinian “giant” T. hermanni hermanni. Genetically they are certainly the western subspecies which is historically the smaller of the Hermann’s tortoises. Yet these animals tip the scales being larger than many eastern conspecifics.
 

kobe

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Just yesterday, one of our members posted a video I have added below. It is not in English, but you can see the report on a large group of Indian Stars that were confiscated from smugglers and held at a temple park until they could be sent to a conservation center.

Some of these stars are really big! Much bigger than any reference ever says an Indian Star can attain. These are stars from the northern end of their eastern India range - (Andhra Pradesh) . I have certainly heard of "larger" stars in the northwest (Gujarat) but these are huge!

By actual measurement of a captive specimen that is a breeding male that he says is not unusual, he reports it over 11" and 3789g. Many of the stars in this video are said to be (and certainly look) well over 15"

So how big do stars really get?? If this is so common to the locals in this area, why does none of the "scientific community" seem to know about it??

@kingsley @Tom @Neal @zovick @Sterant @8james8 @HermanniChris


Buddy
These specimens are very rarely found
And almost falling under the extinct line

These are the only larger ones
And there might be few other
In the deep forests
 

Markw84

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Buddy
These specimens are very rarely found
And almost falling under the extinct line

These are the only larger ones
And there might be few other
In the deep forests
Exactly. That is happening all over the world. It seems we often are learning of tortoises that have the genes to be much larger than we see today in our world. They are the easiest of prey for humans. Slow, pretty and good to eat. So either the pet trade, good luck talismans, food for a long sailing voyage..., etc, etc, has left us with a world where the true large specimens of many tortoise species are either extremely rare, or no longer exist. So we just don't know what the true size potential of many species really is.
 

kobe

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Exactly. That is happening all over the world. It seems we often are learning of tortoises that have the genes to be much larger than we see today in our world. They are the easiest of prey for humans. Slow, pretty and good to eat. So either the pet trade, good luck talismans, food for a long sailing voyage..., etc, etc, has left us with a world where the true large specimens of many tortoise species are either extremely rare, or no longer exist. So we just don't know what the true size potential of many species really is.

Yeah you are truly correct
In order to eradicate all these,
the larger ones are kept in an other area

And itseems
The larger ones don’t tend to mate with the smaller ones
 

Sterant

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Bill Z is traveling right now. I know he had some very large stars in the past. I bought a female from him around 1999 that was at least 11". I'm sure he will jump in when he returns, but those in the video are certainly big!
 

Neal

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Awesome, thanks for sharing Mark!

I have a 10" + female with a collapsed rear shell. I have wondered how big she would have been if she was raised properly. The two hatchlings I got from her last year are growing at a faster rate than my leopards do, relatively speaking.
 

wellington

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Just a question. I know nothing about stars. But, could they be so big, just because they are much older then any we have in the US or in the pet trade?
 

Kapidolo Farms

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A 30 pound star was in @kingsley post, a Sri Lankan. I recall seeing a shell at a reptile dealer's place that at first I thought was a leopard, as the shell was all more or less worn out, tan. It was a Pakistani Star, or aka Indian Star from that more northern population. I have not numbers for it, but would guess from recall it was over 12" in carapace length and pretty round hump shaped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_rule They, tortoises, do seem to follow this rule.
 
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kingsley

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02D27BAE-6BA8-4CB9-8B2F-BE8D898E7794.jpeg C00D48E9-E926-4830-A32C-49D8AE9D69F3.jpeg C5BEE2C9-9C56-45D1-AE32-3D01B0D66D6A.jpeg 48086EA0-555F-4BEE-9B0D-1C0466C501DF.jpeg We have found some very large animals in a national park in Sri Lanka that are well over 20 inches , two have been discovered since june of last year. So far this animal is the largest star documented, pic of Dr Anslem De Silva .
 
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