My Burmese Stars

PJay

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Welcome to the forum! I love the patterns on the Burmese Star babies.
 

Tom

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Congrats! Welcome to the club!

That is a gorgeous trio. :)
 

Nick V.

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Thanks everyone! The trio just became a group of four! Just got another TSF this morning. By the way all of them are TSF, I should start looking to get some TSM soon. tort.jpg
 

Tom

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Thanks everyone! The trio just became a group of four! Just got another TSF this morning. By the way all of them are TSF, I should start looking to get some TSM soon.

You might want to wait on that…

I got all TSF and 3 years later exactly half of them are female. Got 4 more TSF babies about 9 months ago and still waiting to see on those...

Gus got something like 9 out of 12 males, and he's not 100% on some yet. He might have even more males. Maybe he'll sell you one or two if you end up needing them. @G-stars , did I remember that correctly?
 

G-stars

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You might want to wait on that…

I got all TSF and 3 years later exactly half of them are female. Got 4 more TSF babies about 9 months ago and still waiting to see on those...

Gus got something like 9 out of 12 males, and he's not 100% on some yet. He might have even more males. Maybe he'll sell you one or two if you end up needing them. @G-stars , did I remember that correctly?

I agree. Wait until they are 4-5" at least. I received 10 tsf and 5 tsm. All 5 tsm are males. And only 2 of the tsf look to be females. The rest are males.
 

bouaboua

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Very nice! ! ! ! So cute! !
 

Nick V.

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Wow I had no idea how unreliable TSD was in this species, I probably should just wait it out. In the mean time I'll just buy TSF, and I suppose a good deal of them will turn out male. I wonder why it's so unreliable, maybe breeders don't have the temps just right for TSD? At least I know I'll have two females since two of these hatchlings have split scutes..
 
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Tom

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Wow I had no idea how unreliable TSD was in this species, I probably should just wait it out. In the mean time I'll just buy TSF, and I suppose a good deal of them will turn out male. I wonder why it's so unreliable, maybe breeders don't have the temps just right for TSD? At least I know I'll have two females since two of these hatchlings have split scutes..

The only species where the TSD numbers have been actually studied and are known is the sulcata. We can all thank Mr. Richard Fife for that. He commissioned the study and provided all the eggs. No other species has been studied. With the diapause needed for platynota eggs and the myriad incubation "recipes" that people use, its no wonder that it is guess work to a degree.

While spilt scutes are generally going to be female, there are exceptions. I have an adult male South African leopard that I raised tom a hatchling with split scutes, for example.
 

Nick V.

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Very interesting, I bet the diapause is definitely going to make it kind of difficult to adjust temps at the precise time that it would affect TSD during the incubation process. I knew of the diapause stage necessary in platynota incubation, it just didn't occur to me that it could affect the accuracy of the constant labeling of TSM and TSF hatchlings I see for sale. It was nothing I thought to even look into.. I also don't think that these animals should be called TSF or TSM with no studies to support any of that then. Is it just a guess that breeders have just fiddled around with then? I hope that mine aren't exceptions like your leopard with the split scutes, I guess time will tell! Hopefully I will have mostly females..
 

Tom

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Very interesting, I bet the diapause is definitely going to make it kind of difficult to adjust temps at the precise time that it would affect TSD during the incubation process. I knew of the diapause stage necessary in platynota incubation, it just didn't occur to me that it could affect the accuracy of the constant labeling of TSM and TSF hatchlings I see for sale. It was nothing I thought to even look into.. I also don't think that these animals should be called TSF or TSM with no studies to support any of that then. Is it just a guess that breeders have just fiddled around with then? I hope that mine aren't exceptions like your leopard with the split scutes, I guess time will tell! Hopefully I will have mostly females..

Generally speaking, warmer incubation temps will produce more females. Its just not an exact science, especially with store bought thermometers and incubators that are just not that precise. Even if we knew the correct temps for every species, maintaining lab-like consistent and exact temperatures would be difficult for most people.

What I tell buyers is that: "I incubated them on the warm side, so it should be mostly females, but no guarantee."
 

Nick V.

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Generally speaking, warmer incubation temps will produce more females. Its just not an exact science, especially with store bought thermometers and incubators that are just not that precise. Even if we knew the correct temps for every species, maintaining lab-like consistent and exact temperatures would be difficult for most people.

What I tell buyers is that: "I incubated them on the warm side, so it should be mostly females, but no guarantee."
I know it's not a 100% guarantee, but I assumed that animals being advertised as such would have been known to statistically produce more females than males to make the claim TSF, doesn't seem to make sense to advertise that if that's not the case or not any evidence to support the accuracy of that claim. I'm glad you tell your customers that, when I sell my Florida box turtles I tell people that they're TSF but it just means statistically that it is more than likely going to be female.. like 9 times out of 10 with TSD. Pretty much all boxies produced with split scutes end up females, I didn't know of split scutes in these tortoises turning up male. Maybe the TSD occurs during the diapause in platynota? TSD does occur rather early on in embryonic development and that would seem to make sense. I wonder what studies may have been done on when that would occur in this species in particular, if it's right after the month of diapause or before.
 

Nick V.

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@Gillian Moore
Thank you!
@Tom
Also, Tom, to continue my rant because I wasn't done editing before my 15 minutes after posting was up but I mean diapuase is a pause in embryonic development, and TSD occurs early on in embryonic development. When I incubate my Florida box they are at a consistent temperature for the whole incubation period, no diapuase stage, so perhaps it is easier to assume TSD in them. Also, I didn't mean to say that you shouldn't sell them TSF, I just mean the ones being sold as such that and end up being male heavy perhaps shouldn't have been sold as such. Anyway, if hatchlings of Burmese stars are produced with split scutes which are indicative of higher temps, I wonder if it is possible that TSD would occur before the split scutes would in embryonic development? Possibly during the diapause stage? So, wait, the only tortoise species that has actually been thoroughly studied for TSD is the sulcata? There's so many other species that would benefit from this type of study, I do not know why only sulcatas have been studied. But, I feel really bad that the two of you ended up with so many males when you guys intentionally purchased TSF. I hope that doesn't happen to me and I appreciate the advisory.
 
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Tom

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Nick, I don't have the answers, and I don't know of any study that has been done on this species or any other species whose eggs undergo a developmental diapause. I just know what I bought and what I ended up with. I had plans to buy a couple of TSM from one of the breeders that I got mine from and I decided not to at the last minute. I was worded I'd have all females and no male, much the same way things are in the Galapagos world right now. Turns out I was worried for nothing.

A friend of mine bought 4 platynota about 5 years ago and all four of his are female. He had to buy a male. I don't know what the breeder of his did differently...
 

Berkeley

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Wow I had no idea how unreliable TSD was in this species, I probably should just wait it out. In the mean time I'll just buy TSF, and I suppose a good deal of them will turn out male. I wonder why it's so unreliable, maybe breeders don't have the temps just right for TSD? At least I know I'll have two females since two of these hatchlings have split scutes..

Part of it may also be that the sellers know that the females can sell for more, and slapping 'TSF' on there makes people think that it is guaranteed. Sadly, I see this regularly. There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there, particularly in the herp trade. I have no idea whom you bought these from, and I am not implying that this is the case with yours. Perhaps they truly did think they incubated them at a high enough temperature to call them TSF. But I agree, I would wait a while to determine the sexes.

--Berkeley
 

skottip

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Tom, he just got lucky. lol I had to lower my temps .5 degrees because I was getting a lot of split scutes. I have been tracking my temp sexed babies and we will see soon enough how reliable it is. The ones you got from me were incubated at 89 degrees and I have 2 thermometers inside my incubator. :)
 
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