Impressa Aggression

Len B

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I have a 4 year old female Impressa that started showing signs of aggression towards me a couple months ago, every now and then she tries to sneak in a bite to my fingers or hand by lunging forward with her mouth wide open and hissing a warning noise to stay away.I'm wondering if she may be sexually mature at just 4 years of age ? She measures 9 1/4 inches and gets the head bobbing like my mep and mee, once she got a hold of the fatty part of my right hand below the little finger and didn't turn loose until I got her from under the 6x6 she had dug under and did her pancake like blowup or something of the sort to make it hard to move her out. Any one else seen actions like these from an Impress Tortoise before ? A pic of her today.
 

wellington

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Wow, that must have hurt. She even looks like she is daring you to come closer. I never thought they could get that mean to purposely try to bite. Is this common for most females when they hit maturity? Interesting to see the others response. Hope you stay quicker then her.
 

johndesiles

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Vous avez beaucoup de chance de pouvoir acheter et trouver de la Impressa , ici en france c est impossible :/



(Google translator: You have plenty of opportunity to buy and find the Impressa. Here in France is not possible.)
 

mikeh

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From what I have read Impressa can be aggressive/defensive. On one account when wild specimen was picked up it, instead of withdrawing it viciously tried to bite. One of my yearling emys emys although friendly for most part has started to show hissing and ramming behavior. This behavior is mostly noticeable when caught off guard, displeased or being disturbed inside the hide. I too got bit once trying to pick it up. Watch the fingers, their bite is strong and they don't let go.


1386353480177.jpg
 
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Benjamin

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Very interesting indeed. Not too surprising being familiar with manouria. The largish MEP I kept for several years was not a friendly tortoise. Didn't bite but I never gave the opportunity, would charge me given the chance.

Not to be a pest, but is there a chance she could be a he? The aforemention phayeri that I believed to be female(14"SCL) turned out to be male.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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Re: RE: Impressa Aggression

mikeh said:
From what I have read Impressa can be aggressive/defensive. On one account when wild specimen was picked up it, instead of withdrawing it viciously tried to bite. One of my yearling emys emys although friendly for most part has started to show hissing and ramming behavior. This behavior is mostly noticeable when caught off guard, displeased or being disturbed inside the hide. I too got bit once trying to pick it up. Watch the fingers, their bite is strong and they don't let go.






Gee, where did you read that about a wild one trying to bite? :cool:

CTTC article?
 

EricIvins

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It is not uncommon. The animals that do go on the offensive acclimate better also...
 

Len B

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What I see from the impressa is not what I call curiosity nipping that I've seen from the mee and mep that I have raised and the ones that I am raising now. This is the only impressed tortoise that I have worked with,and don't know if this is normal with them, or just a quirk with this individual. and Ben I am terrible at sexing any member of the manouria family, (the easiest of the 3 I think are the mee), so yes it could be a male, last year I posted pics and it was identified as 99% possible female. I tried to get some good pics today but didn't get much cooperation, here are a few from today.


EricIvins said:
It is not uncommon. The animals that do go on the offensive acclimate better also...

you got an offensive male?:D
 

EricIvins

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Len said:
What I see from the impressa is not what I call curiosity nipping that I've seen from the mee and mep that I have raised and the ones that I am raising now. This is the only impressed tortoise that I have worked with,and don't know if this is normal with them, or just a quirk with this individual. and Ben I am terrible at sexing any member of the manouria family, (the easiest of the 3 I think are the mee), so yes it could be a male, last year I posted pics and it was identified as 99% possible female. I tried to get some good pics today but didn't get much cooperation, here are a few from today.


EricIvins said:
It is not uncommon. The animals that do go on the offensive acclimate better also...

you got an offensive male?:D



I do if you ever wanted to pair her up...
 

Benjamin

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Len said:
What I see from the impressa is not what I call curiosity nipping that I've seen from the mee and mep that I have raised and the ones that I am raising now. This is the only impressed tortoise that I have worked with,and don't know if this is normal with them, or just a quirk with this individual. and Ben I am terrible at sexing any member of the manouria family, (the easiest of the 3 I think are the mee), so yes it could be a male, last year I posted pics and it was identified as 99% possible female. I tried to get some good pics today but didn't get much cooperation, here are a few from today.


EricIvins said:
It is not uncommon. The animals that do go on the offensive acclimate better also...

you got an offensive male?:D


I am pretty certain that is a male. I compared your pics to my 8"SCL female and they are very different. There is about 1/4"space between tail tip and that large spur. Also the anal notch is round as opposed to triangular.
I will get to a photo shoot soon and post them. Hunch my 2.1 group of CB animals is really 3.0. I bet most CB animals are male.
 

Len B

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Thanks, I knew I had seen this set of pics before, but couldn't remember where. I have some pics from 2007 of an 11 year old mep I was raising that pretty much took all doubt away, Up until he did this everything pointed towards him being female. I am leaning towards female on this impressa still. I have no idea how they got the tails pulled out straight on the tortoises in the set, It aint happening with mine. More comparison pics would be nice.
 

Benjamin

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5-6" SCL CB manouria impressa, animal on left was incubated for male and I do believe is male. Middle and right tortoises are suppose to be a pair, if either is a female it is the one on the right. Tail of the tort on the right does not touch the spur, it does on the other two.



Guessing female.


WC young adult pair, male roughly 9.5"SCL, female 8". Male on left, female right.


Female.


Male.


The animals on the WCT site were under anesthesia.
 

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