Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If anyone has these, wanna post a picture of them and your setup? What about Leucocephalon yuwoni? Thanks

I don't keep Cuora zhoui but I do have extensive experience with Luecocephalon. What would you like to know?

Nice picture. In your experience what are some of the major problems you have seen from the imports? Is it mainly renal problems or do they like many asians have a considerable parasite load? What type of parasites have you found in yours? Did you keep these guys mainly aquatic or did you offer more land. I have seen them setup in the past with just an aquatic setup. Not planning on getting any at the moment. They are just neat turtles I think. Some friends of mine have tried these turtles with not much success. The C. zhoui are also just one of my dream turts.

Ryan

The main problem with them is that they almost always die. Thousands upon thousands of dollars have been spent trying to figure out why there is such a high mortality rate with this species. We still have very little information as to the cause. They are usually heavily parasitized with nematodes and protazoans. This is the case in the wild as well. There have been 2 new species of nematodes described from yuwonoi. Panacur does not appear to have much if any effect on these nematodes. Heavy treatment regimes do not seem to get rid of the parasites in this species.

At the most, this species will make it for 2 years in captivity, usually much less. They continue to eat and act normally and then one day they look sick and the next day they are dead. The cause of death is usually organ and system shut down but what causes that is unknown. Their livers are almost always trashed after 6 months to a year in captivity.

They are semi-terrestrial, usually spending the night in shallow streams. In captivity, they do best in a large enclosure with lots of land and water. The water area should consist of a clean, shallow (3-5 inches) flowing stream with a couple of deep (12-20 inches) pools. Hatchlings and juveniles are primarily aquatic. However, I do catch mine on land every once in a great while. I've even caught them basking once or twice. Adults tend to spend about equal amounts of time on land and water and may tend to lean a little heavier towards the shallow aquatic side.

There are only about 50-60 of these that have survived in captivity for more than 5 years. I keep a few and have successfully raised hatchlings for a couple of years now. Then again, I have also had 3 die on me this year that have been in captivity for over a year. There has only been one successful captive breeding and hatching and that took place this past July. However, the egg was laid in the enclosure and was not detected until a hatchling appeared one day in the pool. They only lay one (soemtimes two) eggs at a time. About 50 eggs have been laid in the U.S. over the past 5 years but no one has been able to successfully hatch one yet.

This is basically a species to stay away from. You are almost guaranteed to pay $250-500 for a dead turtle. It's possible that this is one of those species that cannot be succefully kept in captivity unless we gather the natural history and medical information to do so.

This species is very difficult. A very small handfull of the top turtle experts, turtle vets and zoos have been working with this species since the mid-90's and beleive me when I say that nobody on this entire planet has been able to consistently keep this species alive even with all of our current veterinary and captive husbandry knowledge.

On the bright side, there are a few that seem to do quite well in captivity as I mentioned there are about 50-60 individuals thriving for over 5 years now. But usually you have to go through 20 of them to get one that lives. There is nearly 100% mortality with every imported shipment. Indonesia has had a quota of 100 individuals which can be exported for the past 2 years now.

I'm one of only four known westerners that have been to Sulawesi to observe this species in the wild. I hope to make another expedition back before too long to collect some more much needed natural history and medical data.

If there is anything else about yuwonoi you'd like to talk about let me know. Not many people interested in this species and even fewer that want to throw money away trying to establish them in captivity and figure them out.

I really appreciate your insight. I really think they are cool turtles. I have only seen a couple in person and the keepers were not succesful at keeping them. Hopefully yours continue to do well. Thanks again.

Ryan