Can you breed two Russian's if they are different sub species?
jaizei said:I wonder what would happen if one were to type "russian subspecies breeding" in the search box?
https://www.google.com/cse?cx=partn...&gsc.q=russian subspecies breeding&gsc.page=1
Amazing.
When dealing with subspecies, it may not just be a question of whether you can breed them but whether you should. Opinions can vary greatly.
Blastoise said:I think it would be fine. I have a pretty hard time telling the difference between the subspecies anyway. In fact, I plan on breeding Russians from different subspecies as soon as they are old enough to breed, might be a few more years yet. And yes, nothing will go wrong, healthy little russian tortoises will be the result.
"Blastoise" said:I have a pretty hard time telling the difference between the subspecies anyway.
CactusVinnie said:Blastoise, you have a hard time telling the subspecies because you are dealing mostly with Kazakhstanica, and a little Kuznetzovi intergrades - that is as far as I could get, but surely most complicated than that.
@TortoiseBoy1999:
I would wait- anyway having to wait until sexual maturity of tortoise- and look for as much as similar mates for my tortoises.
As GTT said, lots of factors that you cannot immagine go into that ecuation of cross-breeding. Even hobbyst should be responsable and as scientific as possible, because you never know if your "just pet tortoises" would be very important some day- oh, yes, concerning the tortoises, we rather can anticipate that!
Later, when more knowledge will be available for us, people will realise that they shouldn't have cross-bred their tortoises.
Just take the example of Testudo hermanni herzegovinensis X boettgeri hybrids, when none was aware that these are different... or the more flagrant case of T.h.boettgeri X T.h. hermanni (!!!), where even releasing in pure T.h.h. habitat of those hybrids happened. In Var region, France, a study revealed a horror story: 17% of that population were HYBRIDS ! I don't remember where I read this, but I remember the percentage.
As for T. graeca... also plenty of hybrids between all the african taxons, and with the Ibera group too. Genetic mayhem!!
So, concerning Horsfieldis, we are again at the beginning, making the same mistakes once done with other species/subspecies. We just don't know enough about these tortoises NOW, but we will find later... maybe too late, as for the previous mentioned ones.
Be patient and responsable. You can breed 2 ssp., each one separate, or concentrate on a single one, as you wish. Just try to match them as much as possible.
TortoiseBoy1999 said:
GeoTerraTestudo said:
TortoiseBoy1999 said:GeoTerraTestudo said:
What?
dmmj said:So does anyone know if the different subspecies different genetically, or are they just cosmetic differences?