tortoise-adventures:

How I keep the humidity up in a tropical tortoises enclosure

These guys are hingebacks and, much like redfoots, need high humidity in their enclosure. These guys like it about 70-80% during the day, rising to 90+ every so often. All leaves and moss are from outside in areas i know don’t use pesticides etc and are just washed before placing them in. The base layer is sterilized top soil mixed with coco coir – make sure to not use compost or similar things because a lot have stuff added to them that are toxic (or full of poop!) Over the soil is a layer of sphagnum moss and then a layer of reptile friendly bark. The bark and leaves seal in the moisture in the soil but prevent them from permanently being on a sopping wet surface. 🙂 The hides are just a plastic hamster hide, a live food tub and an ice cream tub with an entrance cut in and sharp edges sanded down (its a hard life but someone has to eat all that icecream). The hides are filled with soil, bark then moss and on top leaves to protect the moss from the heat somewhat. The water bowl is deliberately closer to the heat lamp to allow it to evaporate off during the day – it does need to be refilled  2x a day though! 🙂 I normally don’t like glass tanks for tortoises, but this one is covered on 3 sides to prevent them stressing. Glass tanks don’t keep heat in well either but my whole room is heated to 21c permanently – their optimum ‘cool end’ temperature. They also raise humidity, but i need that humidity! 🙂 It is covered almost completely with polycarbonate in the basking end (hole cut in for lamps) and wood in the darker, cooler end. This works very well for me, and the babies thrive in it. It can be harder to achieve the look and to maintain it but it pays off in the end! 🙂 

Just message me with any questions! 

Great suggestions! Awesome tortie parent! 

stumpytheorca:

—-   Hatchings on their way to the ocean (Image credit: Flickr user Jeroen Looye)

Wet beaches drown sea turtles
Climate changes may be wreaking havoc on the beaches where leatherback sea turtles nest. As sea levels rise and rain pounds on the sand, sea turtle nests get soggy. This could spell trouble for the charismatic reptile, which at six feet long, is the largest living turtle.

Under field and lab conditions, the scientists counted the number of live hatchlings that emerged. They then unearthed the nests to count the embryos that never hatched. Together, these numbers provided an overall survival rate for each incubation condition. A clear trend emerged: the wetter the sand, the lower the survival rate. On the wettest parts of the beach, no hatchlings survived at all.

These results, which will be published in the December issue of the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, are not entirely surprising to scientists. According to Richard Reina, a marine biologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, the connection between climate change and lower hatchling survival rate was a “fairly easy inference to draw,” given previous knowledge of climate change’s effects on beach moisture.

glitterpub3s:

Ollie the herbivore ✨

Have dominated the shoe and devoured some noms a top it! Now I might investigate these things called ‘laces’. Perhaps I will help human untie them…