Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why is it that many people believe that Sulcatas are suppose to hibernate?

I know of a lady that lives in the next town over from me. she owns a few sulcatas and when I was visiting my vet she told me that this lady claims her torts hibernate, which left me with my eyes rolling.

Now I just came back from a vacation in Panama City and while we were there we visited Gulf World and saw the reptile show.
Later I asked about the Sulcatas that were there and the "Reptile man" said they were rescues which I would want to believe due to the harsh pyramiding. Yet when he said their "Warped Shells" were correcting themselves now due to him giving them their proper diet, and how he wanted to keep them outside but Gulf world would not let him du to the holes they were digging. I sat there and thought to myself "It is 40 degrees outside and you have the room to bring them indoors .. " Then he capped it off with, "They were hibernating well but due to the holes they were digging the boss wanted me to bring them in here where they couldnt dig"

This guy was suppose to be a reptile specialist.

Am I wrong here? Is there a new breed that hibernates that I dont know anything about?!?!

Also at Gulf World he said they had one of them since 1966. Now I didnt even think there were any Sulcata's in the USA at this year.. Which leads me to ask who and what year did the first Sulcata come over?

For the record I thought a zoo in Cali had the first and Richard Fife had the secone pair in the mid 70's but I have been known to be wrong (so my wife says)

Hi. In answer to your question: The first sulcata I ever saw in this country was owned by RJ Brown, a private hobbyist then from CA. He exhibited this animal at the 1971 International Turtle & Tortoise Society Show in Pasadena, CA in May of that year. It was a huge adult and he displayed it in a playpen. He only had that single specimen which I believe was the first one imported to the US. I do not think any CA zoo (or any US Zoos for that matter) ever had sulcatas in the early days.

In November of 1971, I obtained a pair of 11-12" sulcata which had just been imported directly from Africa. These two would later produce the first CBB sulcata hatchlings of which I am aware in the US. This blessed event occurred in 1978 shortly after I sent them to the San Antonio Zoo on a breeding loan along with another adult pair which I had acquired from Europe in about 1975. Through the efforts of Joe Laszlo (then the Curator of Herpetology at SAZ) and then keeper (now Curator) Alan Kardon, these two pairs produced numerous offspring in the early days of sulcata breeding. I surmise that many bloodlines today probably trace back to these 4 animals as their offspring were widely distributed to hobbyists around the US. It is quite possible that the inbreeding of offspring from these original 4 may be one explanation for the ivory and albino sulcata forms which popped up as more and more specimens were bred.

To show how times have changed, I traded an adult female Radiated Tortoise for that first 11-12" pair of sulcata in 1971.