North African Graeca update

rattboy

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10 Year Member!
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Apr 11, 2008
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San Francisco, CA
It’s been nearly three months since I began working with these guys. Although I got a lot of input about what exactly they are, I believe I may have two different localities of Graeca here. Either way, they are likely from very close to one another geographically.

As many have written about North Africa Graeca especially Tunisian and Libyan locales, they have been much more sensitive to getting established to captive living, environmental changes and the trauma of importation. Acclimating imported tortoises from these regions is definitely not for everyone.

I do have a possible option to genetically test them against currently available haplotype data which I am pursuing but it will take some time. More info there when that comes about.

The large majority are starting to show positive signs of less stress and behaving like normal tortoises - basking, roaming and feeding well after various forms of treatment to stabilize them and get them healthy.

Just yesterday, I had my first observation of a male and female mating. I’ll take that as a good sign.

Here are some images of them just being tortoises and of one of the outdoor enclosures.
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Things I’ve learned about their husbandry:

They are nothing like caring for Ibera.

They like warmer nights than I have here in Northern California. I’ve added additional heat to the coldframe as our nights can drop into the 50s in the summer. That has helped increase their activity and over health & well being.

They like to have many shade and filtered sun options when it’s hot out . They are mostly inactive in the hot California summer sun. Not a big surprise given they come from an extreme hot zone and that is probably how they cope.

They fair better with higher humidity. That goes against what most people post about these but I can tell you right now, upping the humidity was one of the big factors that increased activity and feeding.

More updates later.

Paul and the North African Graeca
 

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