Cute! Very cute! Congratulations!Or Kwangtung river turtles / Red necked pond turtles. These 2 little buggars arrived today. Very seldom do you see them become available. I'm beyond excited.......View attachment 210364 View attachment 210365
Nice animals.
That's a species that I've always wanted but since they were always inexpensive and available I waited...till 'one day' came along.
I even had a buddy offer me some extra adults he had--for free (!) about 8 or 9 years ago.
And then they became incredibly expensive and generally unavailable.
Sigh...
Wonderful! I Have a group of these guys and really adore them.
On the subject of their rising prices, I wrote an article last year for the TTPG's BATAGUR Magazine about nigricans and annamensis and how the prices for them seemed to skyrocket overnight. I decided to wait when I saw them for $35 each, then the price went up over night, literally in the blink of an eye, with annamensis hatchlings listed for 800 and nigricans for 2500 each! Prices on each have come WAY back down, but not quite all the way. We'll see.
For those two rare members of the Mauremys genus, much like albino RES at that time, and Cuora flavomarginata the next year, prices are set by the Asian demand for the species in question. They were taking all of these available to set up farms. This is why the price then comes back down. People compete against each other when it seems that a particular species will be the next big thing to be invested in, to make sure they make their best attempt to carve out a piece of the future market on "can't miss" species. It seems like the Asian market is built on a fad-like system where things go into and out of favor very quickly, for the reasons I mention.