First C. angulata Hatching
- Thread starter kingsley
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surfergirl
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Congrats!
Well done and that baby is gorgeous! Very nice growth!
Well done and that baby is gorgeous! Very nice growth!
This is good news. What other species are you working with?
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Cool to see. Very superficially they look similar to some baby leos. Must be a good camouflage configuration. How long have you been waiting for this? It might be the next few years are the breakout years for this species. Ron Tremper recently posted on FaceBook an/some eggs he is incubating. Chris Leone hatched some too, as has the Behler center. And then the mystery person behind a star tortoise web page too.
It's good to see all this activity with this beautiful species.
It's good to see all this activity with this beautiful species.
Congrats on your amazing accomplishment. Hope to see much more of it.
Just a note about the perlite. I'd strongly recommend not using it for incubation. Hatchlings always ingest a little bit of their incubation media, and I've necropsied a few that had their GI tract lined with broken down perlite sludge. I know a lot of people use it, but if they'd seen that necropsy, I think they'd stop. Its just not worth the risk on something so rare and precious.
It must be challenging to keep those forest species in Arizona.
Thanks , tom , I usually switch them out soon after, in this case it was hatchrite.
some heavy shade and misters help during the blazing summer, I keep my Sri lankans out year round , Pyxis and Picturata are kept indoors.
some heavy shade and misters help during the blazing summer, I keep my Sri lankans out year round , Pyxis and Picturata are kept indoors.
Pics of adults taken in June , I wet the whole area during mid day, and it is usually bone drty by late afternoon, this in my opinion simulates coastal humidity , and also some evaporative cooling. 
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You might already have this, if not, I get the impression you might find value in it.
Thanks Will, facinating stuff!! she laid this egg during the on set of the monsoons that were two weeks early this year, June 16 th
I am suspecting I have more eggs on the ground. I see the same sequence with my Radiata , barometric pressure change almost always sets them off into nesting. we are supposed to get some rain tomorrow and I already see one of my females (radiata)walking around sniffing the ground. I also see this in G Elegans, I have one female that starts her season in the winter, I have never figured this out , I already have eggs from her this year (November 8th) , we are supposed to get rains tomorrow and I can almoist guarantee I will be digging up eggs from both these species by the weekend. The rest of the female Elegans dont start till Febuarary (earliest) and continues untill Auguest (the latest) , This is great for me as I have babies almost all year round. The key is to observe your females and keep good notes, you get to know them better than you think, and could almost pinpoint nesting. I have cameras in all my tortoise yards, this enables me to monitor egg laying wrom anywhere in the world!! I had my daughter dig up a clutch of eggs this summer while I was in Sri Lanka, and it was all done Via Facetime, and it absolutely facinated the officials at the dept of wildlife in SL. they watched the whole process on my Ipad, great stuff.
I am suspecting I have more eggs on the ground. I see the same sequence with my Radiata , barometric pressure change almost always sets them off into nesting. we are supposed to get some rain tomorrow and I already see one of my females (radiata)walking around sniffing the ground. I also see this in G Elegans, I have one female that starts her season in the winter, I have never figured this out , I already have eggs from her this year (November 8th) , we are supposed to get rains tomorrow and I can almoist guarantee I will be digging up eggs from both these species by the weekend. The rest of the female Elegans dont start till Febuarary (earliest) and continues untill Auguest (the latest) , This is great for me as I have babies almost all year round. The key is to observe your females and keep good notes, you get to know them better than you think, and could almost pinpoint nesting. I have cameras in all my tortoise yards, this enables me to monitor egg laying wrom anywhere in the world!! I had my daughter dig up a clutch of eggs this summer while I was in Sri Lanka, and it was all done Via Facetime, and it absolutely facinated the officials at the dept of wildlife in SL. they watched the whole process on my Ipad, great stuff.
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Interesting. The first person who I recall who found a correlation of reproductive activity and barometric pressure is Richard Fife. In the late 1980 he presented this in a seminar and I think many people did not receive his observation well. It makes sense that it will be at least one factor stimulating egg laying even if it is not a primary driver, but it may be.
Another interesting point is that even within one population of some species there are multiple reproductive strategies being employed, very contrary to an arribada.
@kingsley What is the normal egg-laying season for wild Elegans in Sri Lanka? What is the weather that time of year? Do they choose open, sunny areas, or more in grassy or bushy locations? Is there a diapause for Elegans? How do you incubate?
Do you know any of the same info for Playtnota in the wild? Do you incubate them as well?
For what it's worth...one of my leopards nested yesterday which was a few days earlier than her normal cycle. As Kingsley mentioned, we currently have a storm system passing through our area.
Mark, no need to diapause Elegans, I incubate them around 85-87 for 50-50 and go higher up 89 for TSF, like to keep the humidity around 65-70 and u can bump up the humidity the last two weeks. I use a 1:1 ratio by weight of vermiculite to water for the hatching media. I was in inland Sri Lanka by the base of the cloud forest looking for very large specimens, and came across newly hatched hatchlings and even the nest, I will post some pics of this in another post, giving 90-120 days for incubation , the eggs should have been laid around Feb-March. This is the same time period my main group starts to nest in Arizona.
The nest was definetely at higher ground and under lite brush. Feb-March is the dry season and hot, the onset of the Monsoons is usually mid June to August. Please note even during the dry season the RH is very high due to coastal humidity and the abundance of water in the so called dry zone, the areas the tortoises are found is refered to as the dry zones due to lower rain fall, but is reall sticky and muggy at all times.
I do diapause platynota for 30 days, and never been to Burma, but will some day!!
I
The nest was definetely at higher ground and under lite brush. Feb-March is the dry season and hot, the onset of the Monsoons is usually mid June to August. Please note even during the dry season the RH is very high due to coastal humidity and the abundance of water in the so called dry zone, the areas the tortoises are found is refered to as the dry zones due to lower rain fall, but is reall sticky and muggy at all times.
I do diapause platynota for 30 days, and never been to Burma, but will some day!!
I
This is fantastic info. Thank you for sharing!!!
How confusing it is for someone trying to offer the best care possible and they read something that references "the dry zone", when it really isn't that dry at all. Your info helps to confirm what I and many others have observed in captivity. They thrive in humidity, and babies hatch at the start of the rainy season.
Thank you so much for the info. As Tom said - invaluable. I so wish there were more actual field observations available. This helps so much.
Tom , I am so with you, the old readings ie Peter Prichard , refers to the the habitat as the dry zone! per (Deraniyagala) the definition of dry zone is basically is due to the low and seasonal rainfall in the habitat areas, this is in comparison to the rest of Tropical Sri Lanka that averages very high rain fall!! , in some places it rains every day!! we cannot compare this to california or arizona dry zones, or even captive micro climates. I have made the same mistake in the past 30 years raising stars in the US, I started paying attentin to RH in the natural habitas just 5 years ago. We have desiccated our tortoises in the past!!
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