western or eastern

[danieledwards2006]

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/shelled-classifieds/178889-hermanns-tortoise-sale.html

Im looking for a female eastern and the bloke says she is western just wanted to double check.
Cheers.

 

[egyptiandan]

She looks Western Hermanns to me.

Danny

 

[Ozric]

The tortoise pictured looks like a western to me too. I noticed he's got a very large range of reptiles on offer. I personally prefer to buy from a breeder rather than a dealer (which this looks like)

This is a good price for a western of that size in the UK. I contacted the guy to ask where he gets them and what it says on their certs.

Daniel if you are looking for an Eastern you won't have any trouble finding one in the UK.

 

[danieledwards2006]

Do you know any breeders who sell easterns 7 years or older fully sexed?

 

[HermanniChris]

I have to dissagree here, that's not a western to me. It most likely is a cross between eastern and western. The carapacial markings are completely wrong as is the shape of the animal. The black pigment cannot always be used as a determining factor when properly differentiating these tortoises. Although the animal has quite a large amount of black on the plastron, it may still be a cross. This person also has boettgeri for sale which leads me to believe he is accidentally breeding the 2 subspecies together. The pectoral scute seam and the femoral scute seam are also almost even which is not right either. Again, there are exceptions to these rules but 90% of hermanni I have witnessed have the correct seam lengths.

I'm 100% going with a cross-breed...

 

[Ozric]

The seller tells me that the tortoises have Slovenian certs. I'm not aware of the Western being bred there generally although of course it's possible. I wondered where the tortoise has been over the past 5 years.

 

[HermanniChris]

Hercegovinensis or Boettgeri rings a bell when I here Slovenian yet I can't recall what's come out of there in the last few years....but definitely not hermanni.....unless like said, there's a breeder.

 

[egyptiandan]

Chris there have been hermanni hermanni coming out of Slovenia. None of them ever came here, but they did get to the UK. They haven't come in in a while, but they are bringing Hermanns in from where ever they can.
A friend just bought a female from this seller and she was the only hermanni hermanni he had. I got pictures of everyone.

Danny

 

[chelonologist]

According to this map, Hermann's tortoises in Slovenia are T.h. boettgeri:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Areale_Testudo_hermanni2.jpg

Who knows whether this map is accurate, though...

That Chris thinks the pictured tortoise looks like a cross between T.h. hermanni and T.h. boettgeri is an interesting point, as Slovenia (at least according to the map) is at the western extent of the range for T.h. boettgeri, and may represent an area of intergradation between T.h. boettgeri and T.h. hermanni.

Quite by coincidence, here's a Hermann's tortoise hatchling reputedly from Slovenian parents:

http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=50&de=624909

 

[HermanniChris]

I did not know that hermanni were coming out of Slovenia, interesting....I think I've lost track of where all these tortoises are coming from at this point.... But that's good news that your friend was able to get a pure hermanni from this breeder.

Still I have to stand my ground on the fact that the animal in those photos of that ad is 100% not a true hermanni. Maybe the photos are off and the pic of the animal's carapace is in fact a different tortoise and the poster did not realize it, because that is not the carapace of a hermanni hermanni.

It's very easy to cross breed these tortoises and as a matter of fact, I just had a man from IL send me 1.2 easterns because he was so afraid his children would pick up a tortoise and accidentally put it back in the wrong pen, thus leading to the two subspecies breeding together.

That animal is Scott Solar's of Amazon Reptile Center, he was posting it originally as a hermanni hermanni, that has since been cleared up, but he is still advertising some hermann's as the wrong subspecies.

Also while it says that the animals in Slovenia are supposedly boettgeri, that doesn't mean people aren't breeding/farming hermanni there as well.

 

[Ozric]

Slovenia is definitely the source of many of the tortoises that are being sold in the UK, and they are generally Boetgerri. There is some debate about this over here, some are concerned about the animals maybe being wild caught even though they come with certificates. Some people in the business say they have been to Slovenia and the breeding centres are fantastic, but others say there just are not any!

I was offered Hermanni's by someone in England, his animals come with Turkish certificates. He told me that someone called DrReimanns runs a THH breeding programme there and insisted they are 100%.

 

[siwash]

I doubt that... I sure the are WC. I know how things work in southern and eastern europe