Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm looking to learn more about the big leopard tortoises, the South African Pardalis Pardalis species. They are obviously much harder to find than the Pardalis Babcocki species. They grow bigger is about all I can tell, but not clear if they have other differences or requirements other than size.

I see occasional classifieds for them, but they are pretty far and few between compared to the more common Babcocki. Not clear whether they are harder to breed, so was wondering why they are less common. Haven't seen any info on breeders who specialize in the larger species. Is anyone familiar enough with them to tell me more about them or whether there are breeders who could help explain if there are differences in breeding, feeding, etc.? Or whether there are any specialized breeders at all?

Anything anyone could share would be appreciated.

Richard Fife, google him, he is the no BS guy you want to talk to. He may chime in here. Jeff Gee is another guy with first hand experence and no BS. Ive seen pictures of HUGE P. Pardalis shells with a man in the pic. They were bigger than big Salcata, but never saw any near that big that were living. Vic

Vic, thanks for the help!
James

The South African Leopard tortoises are less common in collections because they stopped imports from South Africa before other countries in Africa. Based on new DNA testing leopard tortoises are no longer broken into subspecies, though in the pet trade we still see the South African Leopard tortoise identified as S. p. p.

The typical identify mark has been two black dots in the middle of scutes on hatchlings, however not all hatchlings observed in S. Africa have two dots. While the South African leopards grow larger than those from a lot of the range, the tortoises from Ethiopia & Somalia grow much larger. We found a 29" male in Ethiopia which is larger than "Car Jack" the once recognized largest South African Leopard in Addo Elephant Park. The typical leopard tortoise we found in Ethiopia was much larger than the typical leopard found in South Africa.

Jerry, very interesting and very cool! I enjoyed browsing the pictures on your site, but interesting to learn more about the sizes/locations of the big guys. A truly amazing species with the diversity! I just ordered your book yesterday and I look forward to reading it. Thanks!