Growing too fast?

[EJ]

I think it's been fairly well demonstrated that an optimal diet can be obtain by other means. If the diet being fed is already broken down... that is going to affect the rate of absorbtion... which will affect the rate of growth.

If you have the luxury of providing a natural environment that is ideal for development it's easy to recommend a slow and steady rate of growth but I suspect in some environments the rate of growth is far from slow given an ideal environment 27/7/365 days a year. This too is far from 'natural' and probably leads to a more accelerated rate of growth than the tortoise would experience in the wild.

Not all keepers are blessed with such luck so must resort to providing the tortoise needs artificially. In this case the rate of development has little bearing on the development of the tortoise if the nutritional needs and environmental needs are met and balanced.

Originally Posted by onarock

Leopards are grazers. Tortoises are hindgut fermenters. Grass is low in nutrition but high in fiber. Fiber is absorbed hindgut. Common sense is slow and steady if your feeding them their "optimal" nutritional diet. 1+1=2

[Levi]

Originally Posted by EJ

given an ideal environment 27/7/365 days a year. .

What planet are you on EJ ?

[EJ]

I guess you didn't get the memo... I'm in my own world... and not affraid to admit it.

Originally Posted by Levi

What planet are you on EJ ?

[Alan1]

There's a shop in Edinburgh near Jock's Lodge which has a sign, 'Open 8 Days a Week'

[EJ]

Maybe he's part of my world.

Originally Posted by caledonia

There's a shop in Edinburgh near Jock's Lodge which has a sign, 'Open 8 Days a Week'

[herpderp]

I tend to think that as long as you have a good temperature gradient and spray them until they drip you'll not go wrong with SA Torts.
Just watch out for shell rot and remember humid and warm and humid and cold are very fine lines.

[onarock]

People have to "spray them till they drip" because their basking spot is too high. Your having to over compensate. Here is a little something I found on S.A. weather. The more you learn about leopards and tortoises in general, the more comical stuff like spray them till they drip and basking spots nearing or exceeding 38c will become to you. Tortoises and most reptiles in general are not out in the mid-day heat and if they are, you might want to check your husbandry technique and find out what your not providing them thats driving them nuts. With all this spraying and misting nonsense floating about it prompted a friend of mine to ponder the idea of a mythical African tribe called the Ubanji Mistmen. The Ubanji Mistmen is a tribe dedicated to smooth tortoise shell growth. As a right of passage for the men, they have to locate a tortoise, make a mist/spray bottle, and dedicate the rest of their lives or the tortoise life (which ever comes first) to spraying the tortoise shell with fresh river water twice a day. Believe IT!

Advice for travellers
South Africa's weather and climate

A subtropical location, moderated by ocean on three sides of the country and the altitude of the interior plateau, account for the warm temperate conditions so typical of South Africa - and so popular with its foreign visitors.

South Africa is famous for its sunshine. It's a relatively dry country, with an average annual rainfall of about 464mm (compared to a world average of about 860mm). While the Western Cape gets most of its rainfall in winter, the rest of the country is generally a summer-rainfall region.

At the same time, temperatures in South Africa tend to be lower than in other countries at similar latitutes - such as Australia - due mainly to greater elevation above sea level.

On the interior plateau the altitude - Johannesburg lies at 1 694 metres - keeps the average summer temperatures below 30 degrees Celsius. In winter, for the same reason, night-time temperatures can drop to freezing point, in some places lower.

[egyptiandan64]

Might as well jump in 5,000 years in geological times is very short and the climate in Africa at that time was pretty much the same as it is today (with the exception of the Sahara being smaller).
Leopard tortoises have their greatest genetic diversity in South Africa and Namibia and expanded northward from there. So they are very used to the conditions found in South Africa (not much rain and hot summers and cool to cold winters).
Abstract

The leopard tortoise (Stigmochelys pardalis) is the most widely distributed sub-Saharan tortoise species, with a range extending from the Horn of Africa all over eastern Africa to the Republic of South Africa, Namibia and southernmost Angola. Using 1938 bp of mitochondrial DNA (cyt b gene, partial ND4 gene plus adjacent tRNA genes) from a nearly range-wide sampling, we examined its phylogeographic structure and compared our findings with previously published GenBank sequences. We identified seven major clades that are largely parapatrically distributed. A few records of distinct haplotypes at the same locality or in close proximity could be the result of translocation of tortoises by man. The greatest diversity occurs in the south of the species’ range, with five out of the seven clades. Testing for isolation-by-distance suggests that the observed phylogeographic structure is the result of restricted geographical gene flow and not of historical vicariance. This is in sharp contrast to wide-ranging thermophilic reptiles from the western Palaearctic, whose phylogeographic structure was significantly shaped by Pleistocene range interruptions, but also by earlier dispersal and vicariant events. Most cyt b sequences of S. pardalis from GenBank turned out to be nuclear pseudogenes, or to be of chimerical origin from such pseudogenes and authentic mitochondrial sequences, which argues for caution regarding uncritical usage of GenBank sequences. The recent revalidation of the two subspecies of S. pardalis was based on such a chimerical sequence that was erroneously identified with the subspecies S. p. babcocki. Furthermore, according to our data, the distribution of mitochondrial clades does match neither the traditional subspecies ranges nor the pronounced geographical size variation of leopard tortoises. We conclude that there is no rationale for recognizing subspecies within S. pardalis.

Danny

[egyptiandan64]

This makes some interesting reading about feeding Leopard tortoises
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cg...context=theses

Danny

[EJ]

Dannys been indulging... has he.

In simple terms... that is why they are now recognised as only one species.

If you were really good, Danny, you could paraphrase what you posted so normal people could understand what it is you posted.

...go buddy.

Originally Posted by egyptiandan64

Might as well jump in 5,000 years in geological times is very short and the climate in Africa at that time was pretty much the same as it is today (with the exception of the Sahara being smaller).
Leopard tortoises have their greatest genetic diversity in South Africa and Namibia and expanded northward from there. So they are very used to the conditions found in South Africa (not much rain and hot summers and cool to cold winters).
Abstract

The leopard tortoise (Stigmochelys pardalis) is the most widely distributed sub-Saharan tortoise species, with a range extending from the Horn of Africa all over eastern Africa to the Republic of South Africa, Namibia and southernmost Angola. Using 1938 bp of mitochondrial DNA (cyt b gene, partial ND4 gene plus adjacent tRNA genes) from a nearly range-wide sampling, we examined its phylogeographic structure and compared our findings with previously published GenBank sequences. We identified seven major clades that are largely parapatrically distributed. A few records of distinct haplotypes at the same locality or in close proximity could be the result of translocation of tortoises by man. The greatest diversity occurs in the south of the species’ range, with five out of the seven clades. Testing for isolation-by-distance suggests that the observed phylogeographic structure is the result of restricted geographical gene flow and not of historical vicariance. This is in sharp contrast to wide-ranging thermophilic reptiles from the western Palaearctic, whose phylogeographic structure was significantly shaped by Pleistocene range interruptions, but also by earlier dispersal and vicariant events. Most cyt b sequences of S. pardalis from GenBank turned out to be nuclear pseudogenes, or to be of chimerical origin from such pseudogenes and authentic mitochondrial sequences, which argues for caution regarding uncritical usage of GenBank sequences. The recent revalidation of the two subspecies of S. pardalis was based on such a chimerical sequence that was erroneously identified with the subspecies S. p. babcocki. Furthermore, according to our data, the distribution of mitochondrial clades does match neither the traditional subspecies ranges nor the pronounced geographical size variation of leopard tortoises. We conclude that there is no rationale for recognizing subspecies within S. pardalis.

Danny