Geometric Tortoise
Psammobates geometricus
Summary 2
The geometric tortoise is a critically endangered species of tortoise and one of three members of the genus, Psammobates. It is found in a very small section in the South-Western Cape of South Africa.
Diagnosis 3
It has a very strong, black and yellow patterned carapace, used for defense against predators. The patterns are arranged in ray-like markings and help the tortoise blend in with its environment. This tortoise is very small, and a full grown tortoise can only reach about 5 to 6 inches in diameter. The tortoise is one of the rarest species of tortoise of earth, only about 2,000 to 3,000 are alive today. However because of its cryptic coloration and lack of activity, it makes it hard to create an accurate estimate of the population size.
While it shares much of its superficial outer appearance with its relatives in the genus Psammobates, it can be distinguished by the distinctively brightly coloured yellow stars of its shell scutes, the small nuchal and single axillary, the lack of buttock tubercles, and the only slightly upturned rear margins of the shell. [1]
Conservation 4
This species is one of the rarest land tortoises in the world, classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List.[2] In addition to its Red List listing, the geometric tortoise is now protected under international law and listed on Appendix I of CITES, prohibiting international trade in the species.
With South Africa being home to the most tortoise species in the world, it’s not surprising that it has the world’s rarest tortoise species as well. Protecting these tortoises is primarily the job of the country’s conservation officials. These officials work with nature preserves to help keep the tortoise’s status of “endangered” from changing to “extinct.”[3] Its habitat is under constant threat of destruction and fragmentation as a result of, frequent fires, increase in the predation rates, and an increase in vegetation not native to the region. Its environment is now reduced to 31 habitat fragments which include 7 reserves. The Conservation authority of western cape province has made the conservation of the geometric tortoise one of its highest priorities. The areas that are left survive primarily because they are in less optimal farming areas.
Cape Nature Conservation is one of the four provincial nature preserves that the tortoises reside in. The tortoise is marked as a high priority for the nature preserve, so they continually monitor the population of the animals to track their conservation efforts. Cape Nature Conservation believes that tracking the population of a certain special is an early alert system to help determine which animals are more critical than others and helps determine what the animals thrive from and what hurts them. Observation of the population is the foundation to any conservation efforts made to help this species. The population is documented annually. These counts are taken by officials walking through the preserve and hand-counting the number of tortoises they see.[4]
Other conservation efforts are taking place in order to insure the survival of the species. These efforts include studying the types of food that the Geometric tortoise eats in order to understand their environmental needs, and the problems with the non-native plant species.
Public support for government run conservation efforts is very low, as a result private conservation efforts have become more prevalent as a way of supplementing the limited funding that the government has for conservation efforts. This is known as wildlife ranching, and it allows for large areas of land home to be preserved at minimal expense to the government. [5]
Sources and Credits 4
South African Red Data Book - Reptiles and Amphibians
http://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/bitstream/handle/10204/2477/SANSP%20023.pdf?sequence=1- "Psammobates geometricus". The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved 2016-01-10.
- Gardner, Sugnet; Baard, E.H.W.; Roux, Niel J. le (June 16, 1999). "Estimating the detection probability of the geometric tortoise".
- http://reference.sabinet.co.za/webx/access/electronic_journals/wild/wild_v29_n3_a2.pdf
- http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3386/ES-2008-2655.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Sources and Credits
- (c) Nils van Rooijen, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/nilsvanrooijen/4080522986/
- Adapted by calebcam from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psammobates_geometricus
- Adapted by calebcam from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_tortoise
- (c) calebcam, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
