ClaraBelle
New Member
Can someone please help me identify the subspecies of these hingebacks?
Can someone please help me identify the subspecies of these hingebacks?
The smaller one is a Kinixys spekii, typical of the animals in the southern part of their range (most often imported from Mozambique) than the recent Kenyan Kinixys spekii. The older is a likely Kinixys nogueyi, but I'd love to see her cleaned up. Can you clean her up and take a few more photos?
Bill, using observations at iNaturalist and comparing animals coming in recently from Kenya.Right again. How'd you ID the Spekes from a certain range?
Thanks Tom. I didn't quite ask that the right way. What I should have said is how do they look different from each other?Bill, using observations at iNaturalist and comparing animals coming in recently from Kenya.
Can someone please help me identify the subspecies of these hingebacks?
Bill, the Kenyan animals are very dark...they are dominate black coloration on the carapace. The Mozambique animals were much lighter in color, in general. Much more light than dark, like the one in this original post, as opposed to mostly black with some lighter areas.Thanks Tom. I didn't quite ask that the right way. What I should have said is how do they look different from each other?
Speke's in general are quite flattened, and it's one of the ways to identify them. Speke's are true burrowers- similar to gopher tortoises, so I surmise that elongated, flattened carapace is adapted for a burrowing lifestyle. In my observations, the males in particular tend to have the most flattened, elongated carapaces.Thanks Tom. I was wondering if it was because one of them might be flatter than the other as some tortoises seem to show as "almost" as flat as Pancake tortoises.