hi i want to get a good mixture of thoughts from this, and
i state i dont want to start an arguement.

now why are people against mixing tortoises even though they are from
the same region.. like hermann and spur thighed.
but they find it perfectly acceptable to mix and breed 2 ibera tortoises
both from different countries?
to me this is just people following a trend..
i keep spurthigheds and want to get some more.. which will be ibera females.. i am going to keep them with my graeca..
opinions?

My understanding is that cross breeding in med tortoises can and does occasionally happen but the resulting hatchlings are never very satisfactory - deformed, unhealthy, sterile.

However, it is very easy to cross the various subspecies of Greek Spur Thigh, Hermanns within their own group. My guess is that this has happened alot in the past with british domestic tortoises. In the old days people simply did'nt know about the bewildering number of subspecies. There is an argument to say this is a bad idea as you are diluting the subspecies by crossing. I say does it matter? these animals are never going back to the wild.

Out of interest, how would cites define the species on animals that have been cross bred from different species such as a hermanns and a spur thigh? Are the offspring not protected as they are not a "species" on the list, they are actually a hybrid? Can you get paperwork for hybrid tortoises, or is it legal to sell them without?

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thanks for your input,
i agree with ur opinion about that they arent going back to the wild..
and whos to say, that what people believe are ibera may well sub divide again into 3 other sub species.. personally im sick of sub species, they do my head in

i would like to know aswel, good point.!

i know that some owners that have had cross breeding have experienced egg binding problems in females due to the resulting eggs being too big to pass naturally. thats one reason to avoid it i geuss. the other would be that there have been reports of deformities and of course infertility. then there is the whole issue of classification and species.

for me personally, i wouldnt let a royal python and a burmese python mix,any more than i would let a hermanns and a spurthigh. my bearded dragon can harbour very high levels of coccidia that would be fatal if passed to another lizard. i like to keep my species seperate, and in there own enclosures, but i suppose its down to personal preferance.

You mean this lot

North African Greeks
T.g.graeca
T.g.soussensis
T.g.marokkensis/whitei
T.g.mauritanica
T.g.cyrenaica

European/Middle eastern greeks
Subspecies now are
T.g.ibera
T.g.terrestris
T.g.anamurensis
T.g.antakyensis
T.g.armeniaca
T.g.buxtoni
T.g.floweri
T.g.nikolskii
T.g.pallasi
T.g.perses
T.g.zarudnyi

Personally, I think they're really interesting which I'm sticking with the Greek Spur Thigh.

From the TIGR Database:-

'Testudo graeca ibera has been reported to produce viable hybrids with Testudo horsfieldii, T. hermanni boettgeri and T. marginata (Kabisch 2001, Stemmler-Gyger 1963, 1964, Heimann 1986, Mertens 1968, and others).'

cool,
has anyone any pics of a hybreed mediterranean..?

also mensioned above, wat sort of deformaties have been reported with babies?... is it extra scutes and stuff because my wild caught one has odd scutes

I guess my question is, why would you want to hybridise any of these species? I don't see any problems with them living together, but why try to breed from them?

From a scientific perspective, I don't agree with sub-species definitions for a number of reasons. My own opinion is that these are eco-types of a single species, or perhaps slightly more controversially part of larger species complex in the process of diverging.

The problem for classification arises when these sub-species are spatially and temporally separated. Just because they can produce offspring when forced together, this would never happen in reality, as they could not meet, or don't have over-lapping seasons etc....

Andy

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