Hybrid - leopard and sulcata cross

motero

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Thanks for the update sulley13. The pictures look good.
 

AmRoKo

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Beautiful animal! Always lovely to see such a magnificent creature! :<3::cool:
 

memo1987

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Great thread
and amazing pics!
Can't wait to see mine like that!
So now I'm more convinced that I have a "leocata" too but still baby (like a year old)
 

Kapidolo Farms

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Lol sounds like nazi rhetoric. Ze polluting of ze races!

Seriously though very pretty tort.
apples and bolts. All humans are one species, the tortoises that generated the animal in the OP images are not the same species.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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The only time I am bothered by hybrids is if they do not have a chance of naturally occurring in the wild. A Afrikan Leo and sully do interbreed naturally, so a hybrid species from them is not weird at all. Say a star mix with a sully would bother me though.
Could you share the evidence of this possibility, leos and sullys crossing in the wild.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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Can I just throw this out there since it seems to be an ignored part of this topic, but Hybrids amongst these two species actually do occur in the wild, not that often, but they have bred before. .

Any evidence about this that you might care to share?
 

CourtneyG

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Any evidence about this that you might care to share?
Mum used to be a rescue person back in SA and when torts were confiscated from people who had taken them from the wild and could not be re-released, she took them, and she had about 3 hybrids come into her care during her time doing this, and all 3 were ones that people had removed from the wild. The do occur, but rarely like I said.

Hybridization is a weird thing if we are also to think about what makes a species a species and how we define what is a species, but if they can hybridize it means they are still genetically similar to each other that it is possible.
We tend to frown on hybrids since it destroys bloodlines instead of thinking that it is probably another way naturally in the wild new species are made.
Hybrids that come from the same regions don't bother me to much, but hybrids that are not from the same region do bother me.
 

Yvonne G

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Great thread
and amazing pics!
Can't wait to see mine like that!
So now I'm more convinced that I have a "leocata" too but still baby (like a year old)

No, your's is NOT a leocata. Yours is a very interestingly colored Gopherus berlandieri. Totally different shape. You can't go by the color.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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Mum used to be a rescue person back in SA and when torts were confiscated from people who had taken them from the wild and could not be re-released, she took them, and she had about 3 hybrids come into her care during her time doing this, and all 3 were ones that people had removed from the wild. The do occur, but rarely like I said.

Hybridization is a weird thing if we are also to think about what makes a species a species and how we define what is a species, but if they can hybridize it means they are still genetically similar to each other that it is possible.
We tend to frown on hybrids since it destroys bloodlines instead of thinking that it is probably another way naturally in the wild new species are made.
Hybrids that come from the same regions don't bother me to much, but hybrids that are not from the same region do bother me.

I totally agree that new species can come forth by hybridization. I do not recall at the keyboard, but it seems to me a few species had been sorted out and are in textbooks that discuss species origin.


However your Mum was in SA not ZA or is it ZA(South Africa?) Saudia Arabia is SA. Non of these are areas with sulcatas naturally occuring. Can you help flesh out this narrative?
 

Yvonne G

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Mum used to be a rescue person back in SA and when torts were confiscated from people who had taken them from the wild and could not be re-released, she took them, and she had about 3 hybrids come into her care during her time doing this, and all 3 were ones that people had removed from the wild. The do occur, but rarely like I said.

Hybridization is a weird thing if we are also to think about what makes a species a species and how we define what is a species, but if they can hybridize it means they are still genetically similar to each other that it is possible.
We tend to frown on hybrids since it destroys bloodlines instead of thinking that it is probably another way naturally in the wild new species are made.
Hybrids that come from the same regions don't bother me to much, but hybrids that are not from the same region do bother me.


This is because of human intervention. In SA, people brought in tortoises from other parts of the continent and released them. If tortoises had NOT been transported to other areas by human intervention, you would never see 'wild' interbreeding.
 

Anyfoot

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I assume although both leos and sullies are found in Ethiopia and Sudan. They don't cohabitate. Is this correct. Found this thread very interesting.
 

Tom

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I assume although both leos and sullies are found in Ethiopia and Sudan. They don't cohabitate. Is this correct. Found this thread very interesting.

Everything I have read says there is no overlap, so there would be no wild hybridization between the two species.
 

Alaskamike

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Everything I have read says there is no overlap, so there would be no wild hybridization between the two species.
Certainly the don't co-habitate, and this is precisely why they have developed differently and adapted to their particular environments. Here is an old map I found, don't know how accurate it is, but it seems to mirror what I read in other places about their distribution - its
from the Chelonian Library series #1 Leopard and African Spurred Tortoise by Holger Vetter.
P1011349.jpg
They come very close to each other in Ethiopia. I also saw several sulcata in Kenya around a village, but do not know if they were brought there by people or not.This is not to say they cross breed, I could't know that, but that they could.

But regardless, it is interesting. They must have a common ancestor not too far back in evolutionary terms if they can still breed with each other. This is an observation thread, not a debatable one. So I won't weigh in on whether or not torts should be cross bred or not. I certainly have my own opinion hahahah

Good fortune with yours.
mike
 

Tom

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Certainly the don't co-habitate, and this is precisely why they have developed differently and adapted to their particular environments. Here is an old map I found, don't know how accurate it is, but it seems to mirror what I read in other places about their distribution - its
from the Chelonian Library series #1 Leopard and African Spurred Tortoise by Holger Vetter.
View attachment 140095
They come very close to each other in Ethiopia. I also saw several sulcata in Kenya around a village, but do not know if they were brought there by people or not.This is not to say they cross breed, I could't know that, but that they could.

But regardless, it is interesting. They must have a common ancestor not too far back in evolutionary terms if they can still breed with each other. This is an observation thread, not a debatable one. So I won't weigh in on whether or not torts should be cross bred or not. I certainly have my own opinion hahahah

Good fortune with yours.
mike

That map shows the "original" distribution of the sulcata. More current estimates show just a fraction of that amount of land and many fractured pockets. Tomas D. believes they are extinct in at least two countries and likely more, but its not safe to go there and verify it.
 

chenwei

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Can u pls tell me where did u get it from? and how much was it cost? ty
Have a nice day.
 

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