Reptile & Amphibian Forums

born last week...

#2

one more

Great stuff!

Always good to see another one. Seems pretty late in the season for hatching. When was the egg laid and when did the diapause break? My female has already laid her one(?) egg for the season.

Dan

My adults laid from September to December last year and are laying now as well. This egg was laid 12/1/03. Before I had success with plani eggs last season with the 2 months warm, 2 months cool them back warm again, I had put this egg into the cool directly for 2 months. It didn't develop for several months after warming up and I ended up cooling it down a second time for 8 weeks. It started to develop right about 1 month after being warmed again. These guys take an incredibly long time to hatch as you know. I'm happy that I work a lot of hours otherwise it would drive me crazy staring at them...

That's interesting. I would have bet on immediate cooling causing a December egg to break diapause, but not a September egg. I still don't understand the temperature thing since in the wild soil moisture must vary a lot more than soil temps. At least I know now not to vary from the warm cool warm recipe. Both my planicaudas have split scutes from a varying temp incubator that was 88 or 89 for a daytime high. None of the six spiders have split scutes at those same temperatures. This makes sense since the planicaudas come from a more moderate microclimate, so they may require a slightly lower high temp during incubation. Let's hope they're all girls.

Dan

I have an adult pair of the p. planicauda, I was wondering if you have had any problem with the cypress multch? Its hard for me to get in Oregon, but my pair seem to do well on peet moss.
nice baby too-
TQ

I use a topsoil/cypress mix and it works great. It's anything but sterile but I haven't had any problems with flies or anything else for that matter.

I was wondering if someone (WillA perhaps) would be willing to post an update on what had been learned from those of you who have bred and hatched the spider totoises. I know incubation periods are lengthy, but now that more are showing up for sale, it seems people are figuring things out.

Tortuga

I have to say that I've had success with all 4 Pyxis using the 2 months warm, 2 months cool them warm again formula. I haven't gotten any of my babies to maturity yet so I can't comment on temperature dependant sex determination or anything else yet. One observation that I have made is with split scutes. It seems pretty straightforward that higher incubation temps increase the likelihood that there will be scute deformities with most, if not all, tortoises. I haven't been able to make that connection necessarily with Pyxis. I haven't had many splits, thankfully, but of the few I've had, some of them were incubated under exactly the same conditions (right next to in the incubator) as babies that have come out perfectly normal. This has led me hypothesize that there are either more variables associated with split scutes or if it is temperature driven, that there may be a very small window of time that the embryo is susceptible to the higher temps resulting in the splits. Just my 2 cents...

Hey Will,
Congrats on the new hatchling. You seem to have found the formula for planicauda. How many planicauda have you hatched out now?
Chad

That's #3 for this year. My adults are laying now and this season looks pretty encouraging...

Will,
Its really good to see everyone having so much success with these. I was less than pleased with my Pyxis hatching success rate last year. I've received good input from others but I'd like to ask you a few questions hoping to gain a better combined understanding.

1. For the adults, do you create seasons with warm/cool, wet/dry, and different lighting lengths?
2. Do you separate males and females for a good part of the year?
3. Do you spray water or add water after diapause or during incubation?
4. What temp do you incubate at, constant 89?
5. Do you use 1 to 1 vermiculite to water mix or something else?

Thank you,
John