The most often misunderstood aspect of reptile keeping is the fact that they use micro climates. Some red-foots may come from a relatively dry area (compared to the rain forest), but they utilize the humidity gained by hiding under debris and such. Also, I can't remember which issue it is, but I was looking at a copy of reptiles' magazine that had two articles on red-footed tortoises. One was about their captive care, and another was about a colony of them that exists on a large, dry island (and how they came about living there was unknown). They were wondering why the tortoises exhibited so much pyramiding, but it's so obvious. They are in a dry area with few micro climates to give them the heightened humidity they require. They even noted that they found a bunch of them in a dried-up lake-bed (or pond bed, or something like that). I think it's obvious that they were most likely searching out moisture. The pictures of the island show it as being primarily desert, so there is tons of sunlight (tons of UVB), yet they had terrible shells, and were dehydrated.

Even sulcatas and leopards in the wild spend most of their time deep in humid burrows (which is why their shells are almost always smoother than their captive relatives).

You just have to look beneath the surface (literally). Tortoises don't spend that much time in the wild out of the safety of there humid hiding areas (burrows or beneath debris/leaf litter/etc.) As a general rule, however, I very rarely see captive tortoises kept in conditions that allow them to burrow or hide underneath substrate/wood/debris where there is more humidity. I also have only very rarely seen indoor tortoise enclosures with ambient humidity that reflects what they would encounter in the wild.


I figured you understand this already EJ, but I just thought I'd throw it out there for extra reading material for those that may have been following this part of the thread.

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