General question, has anyone ever seen an aldabra tortoise tha thas no nucal scute? We hatched out some last year for this first time and would like to get a straight factual answer.
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ALDABRA NUCAL SCUTE
ALDABRAMAN
Nov 01, 2010 01:20 AM
Replies (5)
mike1011
Nov 01, 2010 05:52 AM
Hi Greg, in Richard Cary Paulls book on aldabs I believe he mentions some having a nuchal only visible from underneath. He also has an interesting chapter on the ancestry of Indian ocean giant torts(comparasions of other extint with and without nuchals).
emysbreeder
Nov 03, 2010 11:11 AM
R C Paull's a very poor researcher. Prichard states ""Almost all specimens have a nuchal scute." Ency. of turtles p290. Things like this have "changed the books" with the advancments of captive breeding. I have seen it myself with Manouria in the Pectoral differences to identifying M.emys emys and M.e.phayrei. Past researchers had small numbers of animals and misslabeled Museaum specimens to work with, along with translations from Dutch ect. Let us know what you find out. VM....pic pictoral scutes of Me.phayrei does not hold up a 100% of the time. This has been varified by two researchers studies in the wild
mike1011
Nov 03, 2010 07:12 PM
I went on to mention that in his chapter on ancestry of giant torts he compares Testudo gigantea(todays Aldabra) with that of its likely ancestor, the extint Testudo abrupta who has no nuchal scute and being its extint I would guess no captive bred impurities. I know the posters breeders are imports for many years so I threw this out for someone to maybe think beyond the obvious and play lets find my aldabs family gene tree game. Dont know if its still there, but Busch Gardens had a adult Aldab who fell in this same category. Adult not captive bred. Paulls book by the way also sites Pritchards work for his info.
mike1011
Nov 03, 2010 08:03 PM
spell check: extinct
EJ
Nov 01, 2010 04:35 PM
In biology there is no black and white... only grey. I've seen many reduced nucal scutes and many exagerated nucal scutes. I'm sure there has to be a degree of some that don't exist at all... I've not seen one though.
>>General question, has anyone ever seen an aldabra tortoise tha thas no nucal scute? We hatched out some last year for this first time and would like to get a straight factual answer.
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