Why humidity for an African Sulcata???

[MollyB]

Hey guys! I'm new to the forum. Glad to be here. So much incredible information!

I've tried explaining to my friend why my Sulcata needs 80% humidity, even though he's an African Desert tortoise. She's not getting it. Maybe someone here can explain it better. 🤔 It may have already been talked about here. Short version will do...I hope. Sheesh.

Thanks!

 

[Tim Carlisle]

@Tom can explain this much more succinctly than I can

 

[wellington]

I agree, Tom can explain.
Short version, they are hatched during the rainy season, therefore high humidity which equals healthy tortoise with smooth shell.

 

[TammyJ]

Baby tortoises, including Sulcatas, stay safe from severe heat, dryness, sand and predators by hiding in damp or humid, warm places, and that's how they survive, some of them anyway, to grow healthy with smooth shells, to adulthood. Tortoises that are called "Desert" tortoises do not live in hot, dry sand. Any that are found in these conditions are moving to someplace warm and humid where they will stay burrowed down or under vegetation, rocks etc. and escape the severe, dangerous environment of the open desert. All Sulcata babies hatch in the monsoon season, and that ensures their best chance of survival...and growth of smooth shells. Tom will correct me if I am wrong ☺️.

 

[Tom]

Hey guys! I'm new to the forum. Glad to be here. So much incredible information!

I've tried explaining to my friend why my Sulcata needs 80% humidity, even though he's an African Desert tortoise. She's not getting it. Maybe someone here can explain it better. 🤔 It may have already been talked about here. Short version will do...I hope. Sheesh.

Thanks!

Hello and welcome!

First and foremost, they are NOT a desert species. They come from forest edge and grassland areas. It takes a lot of annual rainfall to sustain forests and grass lands.

Second thing is that babies hatch at the start of the monsoon season. They literally come up out of their nests in a heavy rain. Its the rain that makes them come up. There are puddles everywhere and marshes form with seasonal aquatic vegetation. Within a couple of weeks of the start of the rainy season, the brush gets so thick that it is impassible by car or even a team of machete wielding Africans, so says my African friend who studies them in the wild in Senegal. Imagine the heat and humidity if you were tucked in hiding from predators under 3-4 feet of heavy thick underbrush, in the rain, in 100+ degree heat. Think south Florida in summertime. My friend from Senegal lives in FL with his wife for about half of each year and says that during the rainy season it is much more humid in Africa than Florida. I don't know how that is possible. Maybe it just feels more humid because its just as wet, but hotter?

My same Senegalese friend was involved in a breeding program to reproduce and repatriate the local sulcatas from that area back into the wild where they are highly endangered and rare. They had major problems trying to raise the babies in large naturalistic pens in Senegal in their native range. Eye problems, terrible dehydration, failure to thrive and grow... all in their native country!!! They solved this problem by irrigating the large "natural" outdoor pens with sprinklers daily.

What about during the "dry" season that all the sulcata books talk about? Yeah... They are deep underground in warm humid burrows during that time. Its estimated that they spend about 95 percent of their time underground in the wild.

Regardless of anyone's thoughts or opinions on what happens in the wild, we have decades of experience with keeping them in captive conditions here. Dry conditions kill them, stunt them, and make them pyramid. Warm humid conditions and good hydration make them grow smoothly, healthy, and at a normal rate. This is not debatable or opinion. This is fact backed by literally thousands of examples from all over the world. Germany, China, Mexico, Africa, and all over the USA too.

Questions are welcome, and your friend is welcome to join here too. Sounds like her tortoise would benefit greatly from the right info.

 

[MollyB]

Hello and welcome!

First and foremost, they are NOT a desert species. They come from forest edge and grassland areas. It takes a lot of annual rainfall to sustain forests and grass lands.

Second thing is that babies hatch at the start of the monsoon season. They literally come up out of their nests in a heavy rain. Its the rain that makes them come up. There are puddles everywhere and marshes form with seasonal aquatic vegetation. Within a couple of weeks of the start of the rainy season, the brush gets so thick that it is impassible by car or even a team of machete wielding Africans, so says my African friend who studies them in the wild in Senegal. Imagine the heat and humidity if you were tucked in hiding from predators under 3-4 feet of heavy thick underbrush, in the rain, in 100+ degree heat. Think south Florida in summertime. My friend from Senegal lives in FL with his wife for about half of each year and says that during the rainy season it is much more humid in Africa than Florida. I don't know how that is possible. Maybe it just feels more humid because its just as wet, but hotter?

My same Senegalese friend was involved in a breeding program to reproduce and repatriate the local sulcatas from that area back into the wild where they are highly endangered and rare. They had major problems trying to raise the babies in large naturalistic pens in Senegal in their native range. Eye problems, terrible dehydration, failure to thrive and grow... all in their native country!!! They solved this problem by irrigating the large "natural" outdoor pens with sprinklers daily.

What about during the "dry" season that all the sulcata books talk about? Yeah... They are deep underground in warm humid burrows during that time. Its estimated that they spend about 95 percent of their time underground in the wild.

Regardless of anyone's thoughts or opinions on what happens in the wild, we have decades of experience with keeping them in captive conditions here. Dry conditions kill them, stunt them, and make them pyramid. Warm humid conditions and good hydration make them grow smoothly, healthy, and at a normal rate. This is not debatable or opinion. This is fact backed by literally thousands of examples from all over the world. Germany, China, Mexico, Africa, and all over the USA too.

Questions are welcome, and your friend is welcome to join here too. Sounds like her tortoise would benefit greatly from the right info.

It's actually my tortoise. He's humid, happily digging, and his shell is perfectly smooth. Thank you so very much. This is exactly what we needed to hear!
I'm loving this Forum.

 

[Tom]

It's actually my tortoise. He's humid, happily digging, and his shell is perfectly smooth. Thank you so very much. This is exactly what we needed to hear!
I'm loving this Forum.

Well that is good news! I was afraid your friend had a sulcata in the typical pet store type 40 gallon tank with rabbit pellets and a red bulb. I'm so glad that is not the case, and that your tortoise is housed correctly!

This forum is awesome. Its a very species place with some truly fantastic people.

Here is more info for you, in case you haven't found this yet:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[MollyB]

Well that is good news! I was afraid your friend had a sulcata in the typical pet store type 40 gallon tank with rabbit pellets and a red bulb. I'm so glad that is not the case, and that your tortoise is housed correctly!

This forum is awesome. Its a very species place with some truly fantastic people.

Here is more info for you, in case you haven't found this yet:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

Thank you, Tom. I hadn't come across this yet. I appreciate you posting this for me. It's very impressive and the info is enormously helpful. 😃

 

[wellington]

It's actually my tortoise. He's humid, happily digging, and his shell is perfectly smooth. Thank you so very much. This is exactly what we needed to hear!
I'm loving this Forum.

So it's actually yours and not a friend's? Hmmm, What was the point of saying it was your friends?

 

[Megatron's Mom]

So it's actually yours and not a friend's? Hmmm, What was the point of saying it was your friends?

No she said it was hers right in the first post. She's trying to educate her friend but she's not believing her. She wanted something to back up why she keeps her torte humid.

 

[wellington]

No she said it was hers right in the first post. She's trying to educate her friend but she's not believing her. She wanted something to back up why she keeps her torte humid.

Okay I see. I some how read/took it wrong. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Megatron's Mom]

Okay I see. I some how read/took it wrong. Thanks for clarifying.

It happens to me all the time.

 

[MollyB]

I see that you understood. It happens. Thanks for all the info. 😊👍🏼

 

[TammyJ]

I see that you understood. It happens. Thanks for all the info. 😊👍🏼

I really like happy endings.

 

[TammyJ]

I really like happy endings.

That's good, Tammy. Yours will certainly be one ...

 

[TechnoCheese]

Here is something I wrote out to argue with someone about this. I found a very helpful article detailing the wild habits and natural conditions of sulcatas a while ago, and it explains things very nicely. This was a bit of a heated argument, and I don’t feel like heavily editing it right now, so try to look past the argumentative tone, lol. It was in reply to something along the lines of “Sulcatas are a desert species, and do perfectly fine in open topped tables with spot bulbs and low humidity. This wooden tortoise table from Amazon is perfect for sulcatas.”
________

Sulcatas are born during monsoon season in temperate grasslands and subsaharan rainforests with a distinct wet season. Compare a map of their ranges with a humidity map of Africa. That kind of misinformation is the kind that keeps sulcatas raised poorly a decade after people figured out the importance of humidity. People considered them desert species when they first came to the pet trade 40 years ago.

Read through this study. https://iucn-tftsg.org/wp-content/uploads/crm.5.110.sulcata.v1.2020.pdf

Pay special attention to page 8 and 9. Sulcatas are highly associated with rivers and streams in their natural ranges, and adults stay in areas dense in grasses and foliage. These areas will retain humidity at tortoise level. They will also choose those stablized dunes to hold their 15 meter long burrows, which will stay moist and humid even when it is dry.

"One of the most important ecological variables for the species is the presence of periodic or intermittent streams and rivers, locally called kori in the Sahelian regions (Petrozzi et al. 2017). In addition, African Spurred Tortoises can be found on slopes and hills, in particular on stabilized dunes, and sporadically in flat areas with semi-deciduous shrublands and high grasses (Petrozzi et al. 2019). The species prefers stabilized dunes, because of their more abundant vegetation (Petrozzi et al. 2017); during the wet season, annual herbs are present in high density and tortoises apparently select this habitat because of its bountiful availability of food (Petrozzi et al. 2017) and because stabilized dunes are optimal for digging burrows (Vetter 2005)." - Last paragraph of page 8, beginning of page 9.

However, even if they did not have these burrows, and you wanted to argue that outside of their burrows is still dry, that wouldn't be true either. their activity is quite literally limited to the wet season of their ranges, and they spend nearly the entirety of the dry season at the bottom of their very humid burrows in aestivation, kind of like the opposite of hibernation. In mali, they only inhabit areas with high levels of rainfall.

"Studies in Burkina Faso have revealed that the aboveground activity of C. sulcata is limited to the wet season (with the activity peak being in August and, to a lesser degree in September), and has a clearly bimodal diel activity cycle, with most sightings in the early morning hours (and a few in the evening) whereas it spends the rest of the day in its burrow (Petrozzi et al. 2020). In Mali, these tortoises retreat into their burrows when the ambient temperatures exceed 32°C, and they inhabit only regions with annual rainfall between 140–1098 mm (Lambert 1996a)." - Page 9, paragraph 4.

There is less food available during the dry season, meaning that they do not eat much, meaning that they do not grow. This is why wild sulcatas, on a large scale, do not pyramid. Pyramiding happens with growth in dry conditions. If conditions are dry, but there is no growth, a tortoise cannot pyramid.

"There is a relationship between growth rate and weather conditions, especially the presence or lack of rainfall (Lambert 1993). This is manifest in the scute annuli in C. sulcata, in which clear, deep grooves (growth arrest lines) are formed during aestivation (Lambert 1993)." - Page 11, paragraph 4.

And keep in mind, this is about the adults. The hatchlings are going to be spending even more of their time under dense, damp foliage and in humid burrows. The ones that don't do not survive. They cannot cope with the dehydration in the wild, and they certainly can't cope with it in captivity. They are born during the wet season and have a head start with those humid, wet conditions.

So no, they are not desert species, and this will not work temporarily. A heat lamp at the top of this enclosure will create a chimney effect that draws the humid air out, and you will not be able to keep it even ambiently humid without covering the top of the enclosure. If you want to use this enclosure temporarily it will take a lot of modification to make it a closed chamber, completely defeating the purpose of buying the enclosure and rendering it a waste of money when there are better, cheaper options available.

You have some outdated info. Please research on tortoiseforum.org, and have a read through this. https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/the-best-way-to-raise-a-sulcata-leopard-or-star-tortoise.181497/

By the way, this is what happens when you raise sulcatas like "Desert species". https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/hatchling-failure-syndrome.23493/

 

[TechnoCheese]

Here is something I wrote out to argue with someone about this. I found a very helpful article detailing the wild habits and natural conditions of sulcatas a while ago, and it explains things very nicely. This was a bit of a heated argument, and I don’t feel like heavily editing it right now, so try to look past the argumentative tone, lol. It was in reply to something along the lines of “Sulcatas are a desert species, and do perfectly fine in open topped tables with spot bulbs and low humidity. This wooden tortoise table from Amazon is perfect for sulcatas.”
________

Sulcatas are born during monsoon season in temperate grasslands and subsaharan rainforests with a distinct wet season. Compare a map of their ranges with a humidity map of Africa. That kind of misinformation is the kind that keeps sulcatas raised poorly a decade after people figured out the importance of humidity. People considered them desert species when they first came to the pet trade 40 years ago.

Read through this study. https://iucn-tftsg.org/wp-content/uploads/crm.5.110.sulcata.v1.2020.pdf

Pay special attention to page 8 and 9. Sulcatas are highly associated with rivers and streams in their natural ranges, and adults stay in areas dense in grasses and foliage. These areas will retain humidity at tortoise level. They will also choose those stablized dunes to hold their 15 meter long burrows, which will stay moist and humid even when it is dry.

"One of the most important ecological variables for the species is the presence of periodic or intermittent streams and rivers, locally called kori in the Sahelian regions (Petrozzi et al. 2017). In addition, African Spurred Tortoises can be found on slopes and hills, in particular on stabilized dunes, and sporadically in flat areas with semi-deciduous shrublands and high grasses (Petrozzi et al. 2019). The species prefers stabilized dunes, because of their more abundant vegetation (Petrozzi et al. 2017); during the wet season, annual herbs are present in high density and tortoises apparently select this habitat because of its bountiful availability of food (Petrozzi et al. 2017) and because stabilized dunes are optimal for digging burrows (Vetter 2005)." - Last paragraph of page 8, beginning of page 9.

However, even if they did not have these burrows, and you wanted to argue that outside of their burrows is still dry, that wouldn't be true either. their activity is quite literally limited to the wet season of their ranges, and they spend nearly the entirety of the dry season at the bottom of their very humid burrows in aestivation, kind of like the opposite of hibernation. In mali, they only inhabit areas with high levels of rainfall.

"Studies in Burkina Faso have revealed that the aboveground activity of C. sulcata is limited to the wet season (with the activity peak being in August and, to a lesser degree in September), and has a clearly bimodal diel activity cycle, with most sightings in the early morning hours (and a few in the evening) whereas it spends the rest of the day in its burrow (Petrozzi et al. 2020). In Mali, these tortoises retreat into their burrows when the ambient temperatures exceed 32°C, and they inhabit only regions with annual rainfall between 140–1098 mm (Lambert 1996a)." - Page 9, paragraph 4.

There is less food available during the dry season, meaning that they do not eat much, meaning that they do not grow. This is why wild sulcatas, on a large scale, do not pyramid. Pyramiding happens with growth in dry conditions. If conditions are dry, but there is no growth, a tortoise cannot pyramid.

"There is a relationship between growth rate and weather conditions, especially the presence or lack of rainfall (Lambert 1993). This is manifest in the scute annuli in C. sulcata, in which clear, deep grooves (growth arrest lines) are formed during aestivation (Lambert 1993)." - Page 11, paragraph 4.

And keep in mind, this is about the adults. The hatchlings are going to be spending even more of their time under dense, damp foliage and in humid burrows. The ones that don't do not survive. They cannot cope with the dehydration in the wild, and they certainly can't cope with it in captivity. They are born during the wet season and have a head start with those humid, wet conditions.

So no, they are not desert species, and this will not work temporarily. A heat lamp at the top of this enclosure will create a chimney effect that draws the humid air out, and you will not be able to keep it even ambiently humid without covering the top of the enclosure. If you want to use this enclosure temporarily it will take a lot of modification to make it a closed chamber, completely defeating the purpose of buying the enclosure and rendering it a waste of money when there are better, cheaper options available.

You have some outdated info. Please research on tortoiseforum.org, and have a read through this. https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/the-best-way-to-raise-a-sulcata-leopard-or-star-tortoise.181497/

By the way, this is what happens when you raise sulcatas like "Desert species". https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/hatchling-failure-syndrome.23493/

In case anyone was wondering, their intelligent reply to this, which I would have LOVED to dissect: "Do you seriously not think the sahara desert is a desert?"

Unfortunately, they deleted it immediately, as well as their original comment, so my reply I spent so long writing was lost forever for no one to read...

 

[Tom]

In case anyone was wondering, their inteligent reply to this, which I would have LOVED to dissect: "Do you seriously not think the sahara desert is a desert?"

Unfortunately, they deleted it immediately, as well as their original comment, so my reply I spent so long writing was lost forever for no one to read...

Well we are reading it here and now. That was a FANTASTIC bit of writing there. Great job.

I would have replied: "Yes. The Sahara Desert is a desert. What does that have to do with a tortoise species that doesn't live in the Sahara Desert?

 

[MollyB]

Well we are reading it here and now. That was a FANTASTIC bit of writing there. Great job.

I would have replied: "Yes. The Sahara Desert is a desert. What does that have to do with a tortoise species that doesn't live in the Sahara Desert?

You guys are awesome! 🤣🤣🤣

 

[Tom]

You guys are awesome! 🤣🤣🤣

I want to know what your friend has to say after you explain all of this to her now. Does she understand? Does she now know that they are NOT a desert species?

Her questions are welcome.