We see a lot of posts asking if their baby redfoot is a Brazilian(aka cherryhead) or a northern. It's hard at to distinguish the 2 at such a young age and on top of that there are a lot of mutts in private collections making it even more difficult.
I think mine are probably one of the easiest to distinguish at such a young age and thought we could start a thread for a general discussion on this subject. Feel free to add anything to this post. I'd be interested in seeing some babies that the breeders know for a fact what they are. (Especially mutts).
From what I'm seeing my Brazilians have a longer more torpedo shaped nose, plastrons start with darker areas around the scute borders and these dark areas spread as they grow creating a dark plastron. They also seem to have the single elbow scale that stands proud.(I'm not convinced this is unique to the Brazilian though) with less scales on the legs than the northerns. My Brazilians have red scales.
My northerns have a short blunt nose, plastrons start out either totally yellowish but some are darker at the scute borders. Not as dark as the Brazilians though. As they grow these darker patches turn yellowish except where the eggsack was. This area tends to stay dark. Legs usually have more scales than the Brazilians and without the 2 prominent elbow scales. My northerns start out with dark orange and yellow scales that get lighter in colour as they grow. Sometimes they have reddish scales that look very similar to Brazilians but as they age the reds turn to an orange colour.
This one is a 10 month old Brazilian
This one is a 8 month old northern.
This one is a 11 month old mutt. Female Brazilian and male northern parents.
I think mine are probably one of the easiest to distinguish at such a young age and thought we could start a thread for a general discussion on this subject. Feel free to add anything to this post. I'd be interested in seeing some babies that the breeders know for a fact what they are. (Especially mutts).
From what I'm seeing my Brazilians have a longer more torpedo shaped nose, plastrons start with darker areas around the scute borders and these dark areas spread as they grow creating a dark plastron. They also seem to have the single elbow scale that stands proud.(I'm not convinced this is unique to the Brazilian though) with less scales on the legs than the northerns. My Brazilians have red scales.
My northerns have a short blunt nose, plastrons start out either totally yellowish but some are darker at the scute borders. Not as dark as the Brazilians though. As they grow these darker patches turn yellowish except where the eggsack was. This area tends to stay dark. Legs usually have more scales than the Brazilians and without the 2 prominent elbow scales. My northerns start out with dark orange and yellow scales that get lighter in colour as they grow. Sometimes they have reddish scales that look very similar to Brazilians but as they age the reds turn to an orange colour.
This one is a 10 month old Brazilian
This one is a 8 month old northern.
This one is a 11 month old mutt. Female Brazilian and male northern parents.