Most females are 60-80 pounds. All the 250+ pound ones are males. There is one that is probably 400 pounds. He was larger than the 400 pound Aldabras that I had been helping carry two weeks before I saw him. I didn't have a scale, so I'm estimating.
I currently have a small herd of babies from F1 Sudanese...there is definitely something different about the carapace. In addition, the original dozen or so that @Tom and I got from Brad were iffy (for the most part)...although I visited with Tom's Gargantua in the late Fall and he definitely has the Sudanese carapace. For the record.my boy MONSTRO! came from a 250 pound male and a 189 pound female. His mama is the largest female I've ever heard of...much less seen.
First...their carapace is more prehistoric...the area we call growth lines are more like cuts in the shell...no white! Their extremely individual in their growth rate...and it always seems that there is one that outgrows everyone early. For Tom, it was Gargantua! I had one that I had since sold...and I forgot his name...but he was neck and neck with Gargantua that first year! With this bunch...it's Arliss. There is definitely something more primitive about them...hard to explain! I'm including a photo from Arliss thread...that shows one of the father's with the table saw cut...that's the ONLY thing I can think of to describe it...half of my babies have it...the rest not so much! The other thing is that there is one mediuthat has a spot of pyramiding. As they are all raised the same...though they come from 8 different clutches...I'm starting to believe some are just genetically predetermined to pyramid. OH! Another thing...Tom gave me a couple of babies out of our first dealing with Brad that weren't doing so well with his herd...one of them I named Goldie...because she was getting lighter and lighter almost daily...I have three in this herd that are displaying this same trait! Anyway, I'll post more on it later...here's the photo of a 250 and a 300 pound male. The 'smaller' one shows the table saw cuts I was explaining above!
Females are hit and miss. Brad had 60-100 pound females...no larger! I'm checking on this F1 herd. Again, MONSTRO!'s mom was 189 pounds 9 years ago. She's in the foreground of this pic.
