Hybrid P. Pardalis x Babcocki ?

Bullit

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Hello,

my name is Steven. I'm from Germany and new here. I buyed 3 babys as P. Pardalis and now i think they are hybrids. Not 2 or more dots on everey scute. Can you confirm this?

Thanks for your help.
Greetz from Germany
 

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Tom

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Hello,

my name is Steven. I'm from Germany and new here. I buyed 3 babys as P. Pardalis and now i think they are hybrids. Not 2 or more dots on everey scute. Can you confirm this?

Thanks for your help.
Greetz from Germany
Here's the thing...

There are 11 clades of leopards from throughout their enormous range. 6 of those clades are from southern Africa. Here in the US we imported all sorts of different types from the 1960s until importation was banned in 1998. In 1990, one man got a bunch of freshly imported true South African tortoises of the type that we used to refer to as Gpp, and later Spp, and he kept them separate and bred them true. This type is from one of those six southern African clades. These are the ones we now refer to as "South African leopards". The other type available over here being referred to as "regular leopards", which at this point are almost all a genetic mixtures of leopards from all over the range, including Southern Africa.

I don't know what is available in Europe. As far as I know they have different types and can still import leopards from various locales. The type in your picture is NOT the type we over here in the US with our limited stock refer to as Gpp, or "the South African type", but they very well could be one of the varieties that occur naturally in Southern Africa.

While I cannot say whether or not the tortoises in your picture are one of the six South African varieties or not, I CAN say they are not the type we refer to over here as South Africans. To my eye with my limited American experience, those look like the typical "mixes", formerly erroneously referred to as "hybrids", over here.

Here are some pics of the TRUE SA leopard babies from here. There does not have to be two dots in every scute. There is a lot of variation, but after seeing a few dozen of them over a few years, you can easily distinguish between the two when they are little hatchlings.
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Tom

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Ok. Thx. I think they are mixed.
Do you have multiple pictures of babies from each of the 6 clades in SA? I don't, but I have seen a handful of pics of babies actually in South Africa and that is why I'm hesitant to proclaim these mixes in Germany. If they were here in the states, where we only have one type from one clade that has been bred true for decades, I would definitely call them mixes.

You may have other reasons to suspect foul play since you know the details about the seller and the transaction, and I don't.
 
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