fbolzicco said:Yellow Turtle said:fbolzicco said:EricIvins said:In a captive setting maturity can be reached by 5 years ( If not earlier ), with 3-5 clutches a year....
Tell me that isn't quickly....No different than a Redfoot...
this is the very first time I read something like this..
It would be a pleasure to read something written by someone who can do this..
Generation time is considered as 42 years; the assessment is carried out by considering documented impacts over a period encompassing less than two past generations (67 years) and anticipated impacts on the next generation (next 33 years) for a maximum assessment period of 100 years. Available information indicates that the species has disappeared entirely from about 40% of its past range through a combination of habitat loss and exploitation, and that remaining populations have been severely depleted by recent and ongoing exploitation predominantly for domestic consumption; an overall population reduction of 80% over two past and one future generation is a conservative estimate, thus qualifying as Critically Endangered under criterion A4d. Population modelling indicates collapse and extinction in a period of on average 45 years into the future, thus meeting Critically Endangered under criterion E. Habitat loss rates approach or exceed 80% over the three generation period, thus A4c may also be met.
if you want to read something more http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/9014/0
This is actually similar to what one of the members who has successfully bred ploughshare shares. F2 reached maturity so fast that is almost ready to breed now, if I remember correctly. Those 20 years of maturity is certainly not needed in captivity.
Unfortunately I don't trust all those IUCN created articles nor any other articles created by those chelonian centers regarding how rare those tortoises in the world now. Fact of all those hatchlings and juveniles imported to my country is the reason I don't trust any of those articles anymore.
I was talking about radiated tortoises in the wild, however I know for sure that a radiata female need to reach more than 31 cm both in captivity and in the wild to breed successfully (may be can appen that a female breed smaller but the averages doesn't work this way), and this is not possible in 5 years or less as someone wrote here.
unfortunately I found IUCN articles very close to reality, those species are endangered beacuse of the poachers who steal the hatchlings from the center, and unfortunately this is a truth about plougshares (I know personally people who worked in the Ampijoroa center).
For the radiated it is true that babies hatch on the floor, and beacuse of the major number of adult specimens who can breed successfully it is quietly easier to get big numbers of hatchlings.
however this is not what the topic was created for, I don't want to discuss about the status of a tortoise endangerment, I am not the authority who protect those animals, my only duty is to buy regular animals, not smuggled inside luggage or something else.
I will post some other pics soon about this amazing animals taken in the red ground.
Oh yes my apology, lets get back to the picture topic unless we are turning this in debate section.
I'd love to see more pictures of wild radiata and wonder if there is any big adult radiata with full yellow stripes from your pictures.