A Hermanus resident couldn’t believe his luck when he came across a juvenile Homopus areolatus.
Neil Jangle posted on the Onrus/Vermont Facebook Page: “Been a while. Probably after three years of searching this area I finally found a juvenile,
Homopus areolatus. What a surreal experience it was seeing this little green gem staring back at me.
“This little character measures around 5 cm. To put just how tiny this species is in perspective, the male’s maximum length is around 7-8 cm, so not much bigger than this little one… and the female around 10 cm. The cutest little creature you could ever wish to see.”
According to Wikipedia “Padloper tortoise” can refer to two different, but closely related, tortoise species: the Speckled Padloper (Chersobius signatus) and the Parrot-beaked Tortoise (Homopus areolatus), both found in Southern Africa. The Speckled Padloper is the world’s smallest tortoise. The Parrot-beaked Tortoise is also known as the Common Padloper. Both are small tortoises with flattened shells and are endemic to South Africa.
There is more good news for nature lovers as specially-trained border collies are proving to be game-changers in the fight to save South Africa’s most endangered reptile species. These remarkable conservation dogs are revolutionising how researchers track and protect the critically-endangered geometric tortoise.
With her snout pressed firmly to the ground, Delta the border collie zigzags methodically through the shrubs of a private nature reserve near Cape Town. Her mission is to locate the elusive geometric tortoises that call this region home.
When Delta suddenly stops and lies down in front of a small bush her handler knows she’s made a discovery.
Hidden in the tall grass lies a tiny reptile, its distinctive shell adorned with yellow star-like patterns, the unmistakable signature of a geometric tortoise, a species found exclusively at the southern tip of Africa.
“One can tell by its flat belly that it’s an adult female,” Esther Matthew, Delta’s handler and a conservation officer for South Africa’s Endangered Wildlife Trust, pointed out.
“These specially-trained dogs prove to be five times more effective than human searchers, with enhanced detection capabilities that allow them to find smaller tortoises often missed by humans. The canines show particular success in loca-
ting hatchlings and juveniles, leading to a dramatic increase in total discoveries per search mission.
The geometric tortoise conservation situation has reached crisis levels. According to biologist Andrew Turner of conservation authority Cape Nature the species’ population has plummeted dramatically since the early 1990s, when approximately 1 500 individuals remained in the wild.
“Current estimates suggest only several hundred survive today, confined exclusively to South Africa’s Western Cape province.
“The species now faces ‘declines across the entire remaining range’, earning it critically-endangered status.”
