Sighting frequency and food habits of the leopard tortoise

[Neal]

I am pretty sure this article was shared on the forum at some point, but I just wanted to draw some attention to it now as some of us are preparing our outdoor pens for the warmer weather around the corner. It looks like this article was written in 2001, but the date is really irrelevant given the context of the article about diet.

Basically it was a study conducted in Northern Tanzania and identifies feeding habits of leopard tortoises in the wild and sighting frequency based on man hours.

I first read this a year ago, and started to include some of the plants identified in the article in our outdoor pens. I am excited this year now that the plants have grown a little to see how well they do with a more "natural" diet.

This is going to relate more to the babcocki leopards more-so than the South African variety, but there are some references to SA-leopard diets.

I was surprised at the percentage of succulents the wild East African leopard tortoises consume as compared to grasses which most books and articles state their natural diet mainly consists of. Anyone who has a both babcocki and pardalis leopards might have observed that the babcocki are less likely to eat grass than the pardalis...I think this article answers why that is.

If anything, it is an interesting read and I think anyone with interest in leopard tortoises would find this information valuable.

http://africantortoise.com/AfJEcoPardalis2001-1.pdf

 

[Yvonne G]

Thank you...I don't think I've ever seen that before.

 

[Zamric]

a long read, but worth it! Thanks Neal!

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

Thanks for reporting this! Great information.

Is there a similar study on sulcatas in the wild?

 

[Neal]

Not sure. A friend referred me to this article after he did some deep google searching. I'm sure there are a TON of articles like this out there on several different species.

 

[wellington]

I only have a babcocki, but I always wondered why he wouldn't eat the grass growing in his indoor enclosure. I thought maybe when he got bigger he would. He will eat the clover, but not the grass. Well now I know, and will not try to grow it indoors anymore. I will stick with clover and weedy stuff. Thanks for bringing it up again.

 

[Jacob]

Interesting info, I Bet Theres One on Sulcata's too.

 

[DesertGrandma]

Neal, can you tell us what succulents are you growing to try to more closely replicate their natural diet? We all know that they love cactus and get a lot of nutrition from them. Don't know if a cactus is officially a succulent or not?? I have been planning to try to grow some Wood Rose this spring (portulaca) and now I am more excited to see if it turns out to be a good one.

 

[Neal]

Neal, can you tell us what succulents are you growing to try to more closely replicate their natural diet? We all know that they love cactus and get a lot of nutrition from them. Don't know if a cactus is officially a succulent or not?? I have been planning to try to grow some Wood Rose this spring (portulaca) and now I am more excited to see if it turns out to be a good one.

I responded to this on another thread, but here is what we have currently:


For succulents we have a lot of Jade plant, elephant bush, ice plant, and a few others I can't remember now. What we are going to try soon is puncturevine. The article mentions this is a critical food item for S. Pardalis. We also have a variety of opuntia.

Grape Ivy is something we are going to try this year, which is mentioned as being eaten the most frequently. It appears that there are a few different varieties so I want to find out which ones are safe for the tortoises.

It isn't much different than what is frequently talked about on the forum, but I'm going to go around this weekend to try and find some of the legumes the article mentioned. The article mentions some other specific plants in their latin names, I'm not a plant wizard so I'd have to do some research on what their common names would be.

 

[DesertGrandma]

Thanks. Good to know.

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

Not sure. A friend referred me to this article after he did some deep google searching. I'm sure there are a TON of articles like this out there on several different species.

Not so sure there are a lot of articles like this one out there. That's why I was so excited to read this. I have found articles on wild diet in Testudo, Gopherus, Terrapene, as well as Galapagos and Aldabra tortoises. Now leopard tortoise, too. Would love to read more about other popular tortoises. I am curious to know how much grass the sulcata eats. If the leopard still relies primarily on forbs, I really wonder if that's true for the larger sulcata.

 

[Neal]

They're out there. I have come across about 5 other studies on just leopard tortoises that are similar to this one...there's gotta be something.

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Here is one that discuses comparative growth patterns among leopards, sulcatas, and others...but it looks like you need an account to read the whole article.

http://www.fupress.net/index.php/tropicalzoology/article/view/62/61

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Great!

 

[Ziggy]

How can you tell the difference between a Babcocki and pardalis?

 

[Tom]

Thanks Neal. Good info. Please let me know if you find a source for some of the more unusual stuff. I'd like to try it out too. I also have elephant bush, ice plant and jade plant. My leopards didn't show much interest in any of it at first, but they are starting to nibble at it more and more each time I offer it.

I started reading the article, gotta go finish it.