Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi All,

I haven't posted to this forum in a longgggggg time.

It was probably '98 or '99.

Anyways, I paruse the tortoise classifieds to see what types of tortoises are being traded, etc., and I noticed that there seem to be many people offering 4" pancake tortoises.

Does anyone know if these are being imported? Are they captive ranched/hatched specimens from Tanzania?

Thanks,

Tom

I not aware of any imports but I do know several people successfully breeding them in captivity.

They seem to be one of the easier species of tortoise to breed in captivity but since they usually only lay a single egg at a time so I don't expect to see large number of them.

Overall I wouldn't be surprised if a few hundred are being hatched each year in the US.

John

They aren't imports...there are more and more people breeding them each year.

Hey Tom,

>>Does anyone know if these are being imported? Are they captive ranched/hatched specimens from Tanzania?

Here's the deal as I understand it:

Pancakes are field collected as SMALL animals and shipped legally into Europe (they are NOT being bred in Africa, only collected). Then, they are grown as long as is takes to reach 4" and imported into the US as CB animals from Europe with legal CITES paperwork. I'd be willing to bet that not ONE animal over 4" on the Kingsnake tort classifieds was produced in the US. Yeah, I may sound harsh about that, but it's happened before and I'm about 98% sure it's the same deal again. But, I could be wrong...

Matt