Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Geoch­e­lone el­e­gans is found in three dis­crete por­tions of the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent: the first is in west­ern India and ex­treme south­east­ern Pak­istan (e.g., Gu­jarat, Ra­jasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in India and the Thar Desert in Pak­istan), the sec­ond is in south­east­ern India (Kar­nataka, Ker­ala, Tamil Nadu), the third is on the is­land of Sri Lanka. No sub­species are rec­og­nized, al­though there are re­gional vari­a­tions in color and mor­phol­ogy. In gen­eral, star tor­toises from north­ern India tend to be larger and darker, with less con­trast­ing shell pat­terns, than those from south­ern India, which tend to be smaller and have more con­trast­ing, star-like shell pat­terns. Sri Lankan tor­toises may have more con­trast­ing shell pat­terns with broader yel­low mark­ings and they tend to reach larger sizes than south­ern In­dian tor­toises. How­ever, much vari­a­tion oc­curs among in­di­vid­ual star tor­toises and within local pop­u­la­tions. ("Hon­olulu Zoo", 2008; "Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Das, 2002; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007; Tabaka and Sen­neke, 2006)

• Biogeographic Regions
• oriental
  • native

Habi­tat

In­dian star tor­toises oc­cupy a wide range of habi­tats, in­clud­ing moist de­cid­u­ous for­est, semi-arid low­land forests, thorn scrub forests, arid grass­lands, and semi-desert. These tor­toises have a high tol­er­ance for sea­son­ally wet or dry habi­tats, with many pop­u­la­tions liv­ing in areas with a mon­soon (rainy) sea­son fol­lowed by an ex­ten­sive hot and dry pe­riod. They some­times live in agri­cul­tural areas. ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Fife, 2007; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

• Habitat Regions
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune
• savanna or grassland
• forest
• scrub forest

• Other Habitat Features
• agricultural
• riparian

• Range elevation

  0 to 450 m

  0.00 to 1476.38 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

In­dian star tor­toises have yel­low to tan heads, limbs, and tails, though the skin may be marked with dark spots or blotches. The cara­pace is the most strik­ing fea­ture of this tor­toise and can have smooth to al­most pyra­mi­dal scutes. Each scute has a yel­low­ish are­ola (cen­ter) with yel­low or tan lines ra­di­at­ing from it, form­ing the star shape for which this species is named. The mar­ginal scutes have in­com­plete “stars”. Back­ground color is brown to black. The plas­tron has dark ra­di­at­ing lines on a lighter yel­low­ish back­ground. ("Hon­olulu Zoo", 2008; Das, 1995; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007; Ra­jarat­nam, 2008; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

Fe­males are often markedly larger than males. An adult male’s cara­pace typ­i­cally grows to a straight-line length of 15 to 20 cm (about 6 to 8 inches), and fe­males reach 25 to 30 cm (about 10 to 12 inches). The record re­ported cara­pace length (fe­male) is 38 cm (about 15 inches). ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007)

Be­sides adult size dif­fer­ences, the sexes may be sep­a­rated by mor­pho­log­i­cal char­ac­ters. Adult males have longer, thicker tails, and a con­cave plas­tron (which fa­cil­i­tates mount­ing and mat­ing). Males have a dif­fer­ent form of the paired anal scutes (pos­te­rior scutes of the plas­tron)— these scutes are more elon­gate and have a wider angle of sep­a­ra­tion than in the fe­male. Con­versely, fe­males have shorter tails and flat plas­trons. The anal scutes of fe­males are shorter, with a nar­rower angle of sep­a­ra­tion di­rected more to­wards the rear of the plas­tron. (Das, 1995; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• female larger
• sexes shaped differently

• Range mass

  1 to 6.6 kg

  2.20 to 14.54 lb

• Range length

  15 to 38 cm

  5.91 to 14.96 in

De­vel­op­ment

In­dian star tor­toises are oviparous; their eggs have a hard but brit­tle shell that is quite porous. The eggs are usu­ally el­lip­ti­cal in shape, but some­times nearly spher­i­cal. They weigh be­tween 12 and 21 grams, and are typ­i­cally about 35 to 52 mm (1.4 to 2.1 inches) in length. Larger fe­males can lay larger eggs. At first the eggs are translu­cent and pink­ish in color, but tend to "chalk" (be­come opaque white) after two to three weeks, start­ing from a cen­tral belt of opac­ity and pro­gress­ing to even­tu­ally en­ve­lope the whole shell. Sex de­ter­mi­na­tion is tem­per­a­ture de­pen­dent, with mostly males re­port­edly pro­duced at in­cu­ba­tion tem­per­a­tures be­tween 28 and 30 de­grees Cel­sius and mostly fe­males re­sult­ing from in­cu­ba­tion tem­per­a­tures from 31 to 32 de­grees Cel­sius. In­cu­ba­tion times are prob­a­bly tem­per­a­ture (and per­haps hu­mid­ity) de­pen­dent; most eggs hatch in around 90 to 170 days (known range, 47 to 180 days). Hatch­lings lack the ra­di­at­ing star mark­ings; the cara­pace is usu­ally black or brown with rec­tan­gu­lar yel­low or or­ange blotches on each scute that ex­tend out­ward at the cor­ners. They can grow rapidly for the first few months of their lives. ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Das, 2002; Edqvist, 2008; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006; Tabaka and Sen­neke, 2006)

• Development - Life Cycle
• temperature sex determination

Re­pro­duc­tion

Males com­pete for mates by try­ing shove rival males or flip them onto their backs. Courtship is some­what more sub­dued than in many other species of tor­toises, often with lit­tle or no shov­ing, butting, and bit­ing of fe­males - which are often much larger than the males in this species. Dur­ing mat­ing, the male emits grunt-like sounds. (Das, 2002; Edqvist, 2008; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

When the rainy sea­son ar­rives (mid June to No­vem­ber in south India), breed­ing com­mences. About 60 to 90 days post-mat­ing, usu­ally in the evening, fe­males begin wan­der­ing and sniff­ing the ground. When a fe­male finds an ac­cept­able nest site, she often uri­nates to soften the soil and be­gins ex­ca­vat­ing a flask-shaped nest with her hind feet. After she has laid her eggs, she re-fills the nest and flat­tens the soil with her plas­tron. The fe­male lays from one to as many as nine clutches, of one to ten eggs per clutch, each year. In­cu­ba­tion lasts from 47 to 180 days; hatch­lings weigh be­tween 25 and 45 g and av­er­age about 35 mm in cara­pace length. In the wild, fe­males may be­come sex­u­ally ma­ture in 8 to 12 years and males in 6 to 8 years, but these times can be short­ened con­sid­er­ably in cap­tive tor­toises. ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Edqvist, 2008; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Indian star tortoises breed during the rainy seasons, laying up to 9 clutches during that time.

• Breeding season

  Indian star tortoises breed seasonally, usually coinciding with the local rainy season, which varies in timing.

• Range number of offspring

  1 to 10

• Range gestation period

  47 to 180 days

• Range time to independence

  0 (low) minutes

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  7 to 12 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  6 to 8 years

Males ex­pend con­sid­er­able en­ergy seek­ing fe­males and fend­ing off rival males. Fe­males must con­tribute con­sid­er­able en­ergy to­wards pro­duc­ing and pro­vi­sion­ing (yolk­ing) eggs and con­struct­ing nests. There is no post-nest­ing parental care of eggs or hatch­lings. (Das, 2002; Fife, 2007)

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

No stud­ies on nat­ural sur­vivor­ship or lifes­pan in na­ture are avail­able. As with other ch­e­lo­ni­ans, pre­sum­ably the eggs and small hatch­lings and ju­ve­niles suf­fer the high­est lev­els of mor­tal­ity, with in­creas­ing sur­vivor­ship as tor­toises reach adult­hood. Thus av­er­age lifes­pan might be con­sid­er­ably lower than po­ten­tial lifes­pan. (Kle­mens, 2000; Slavens and Slavens, 1999; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

• Range lifespan
  Status: captivity

  25 (high) years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  35 to 80 years

Be­hav­ior

Dur­ing dry, hot weather In­dian star tor­toises are mostly ac­tive dur­ing the early morn­ing and late af­ter­noon. The rest of the day, these tor­toises shel­ter under veg­e­ta­tion or other cover. Dur­ing the rainy sea­son, their ac­tiv­ity level in­creases tremen­dously and they can be ob­served mov­ing around and feed­ing dur­ing much of the day. In west­ern India and Pak­istan they be­come in­ac­tive dur­ing the colder win­ter months. (Das, 1995; Fife, 2007; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• crepuscular
• motile
• sedentary
• hibernation
• daily torpor
• solitary

Home Range

There is no in­for­ma­tion avail­able on home range size in In­dian star tor­toises. (Das, 1995)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and per­cep­tion ap­pears to be pri­mar­ily vi­sual, though ol­fac­tory and tac­tile senses come into play dur­ing feed­ing, male com­pet­i­tive be­hav­ior, courtship, and nest­ing, and male tor­toises vo­cal­ize to fe­males dur­ing mat­ing. (Das, 1995; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• infrared/heat
• tactile
• acoustic
• vibrations
• chemical

Food Habits

In­dian star tor­toises are pri­mar­ily her­biv­o­rous. The ma­jor­ity of the diet con­sists of grasses, herba­ceous leaves, fruit, and flow­ers, but they have been known to con­sume in­sects, car­rion, and dung. When food is scarce, such as in the sea­son­ally dry, hot pe­ri­ods, they will be­come in­ac­tive and go long pe­ri­ods with­out eat­ing. ("Hon­olulu Zoo", 2008; Das, 1995; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • folivore
  • frugivore

• Animal Foods
• carrion
• insects

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• fruit
• flowers

• Other Foods
• dung

Pre­da­tion

As adults In­dian star tor­toises are pro­tected by their heavy shells and habit of stay­ing under cover when not ac­tively for­ag­ing or breed­ing. While the star-like pat­tern on the cara­pace looks con­spic­u­ous when a tor­toise is held in hand, the pat­tern ac­tu­ally breaks up and ob­scures the shape of the tor­toise when it is hid­ing in tall grasses. Re­ports on nat­ural pre­da­tion on In­dian star tor­toises are scarce, but this species un­doubt­edly suf­fers heavy losses of eggs and young tor­toises from a va­ri­ety of preda­tory mam­mals (jack­als, foxes, mon­goose, etc.), birds (hawks, vul­tures, etc.), and large rep­tiles (mon­i­tor lizards, snakes). Hu­mans are the most sig­nif­i­cant preda­tor of ju­ve­nile and adult Geoch­e­lone el­e­gans; these tor­toises have been tra­di­tion­ally col­lected for local con­sump­tion and in re­cent decades have been sys­tem­at­i­cally col­lected in large num­bers for the com­mer­cial food and pet trade. ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Das, 2002; Fife, 2007; Gaur, et al., 2006; Ra­jarat­nam, 2008; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• cryptic

• Known Predators

  • humans (Homo sapiens)

Ecosys­tem Roles

While species-spe­cific stud­ies are scarce, In­dian star tor­toises are un­doubt­edly sig­nif­i­cant her­bi­vores in their habi­tats when abun­dant and they may act as dis­per­sal agents for var­i­ous plants via con­sump­tion (and in­com­plete di­ges­tion) of seeds and fruit. Star tor­toises are hosts to nu­mer­ous ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal par­a­sites, such as ticks and in­testi­nal worms. (Das, 1995; Ernst and Bar­bour, 1989; Fife, 2007)

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

In­dian star tor­toises have un­doubt­edly been used for human food ever since the two species came into con­tact thou­sands of years ago. Local sub­sis­tence use might not have se­ri­ously im­pacted tor­toise pop­u­la­tions, but sys­tem­atic mass col­lec­tion for the com­mer­cial food and pet mar­ket is un­sus­tain­able, re­duc­ing or even ex­tir­pat­ing tor­toise pop­u­la­tions. The im­pact is made more sig­nif­i­cant when cou­pled with mas­sive on-go­ing habi­tat losses oc­cur­ring in re­cent years. In­dian star tor­toises are pop­u­lar in the pet trade be­cause of their beau­ti­ful mark­ings and rel­a­tively small size. In­dian star tor­toises are also some­times of­fered in food and tra­di­tional med­i­cine shops in Malaysia and China. Ex­port from India and Sri Lanka has been il­le­gal for many years but an il­le­gal trade ex­ists. For­tu­nately, many of the In­dian star tor­toises now being of­fered in the United States and Eu­ro­pean pet trade are cap­tive-bred hatch­lings. ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Das, 2002; Fife, 2007; Sekhar, et al., 2004)

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade
• food
• body parts are source of valuable material
• source of medicine or drug

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

In­dian star tor­toises oc­ca­sion­ally move into gar­dens and agri­cul­tural areas and feed on crop plants, and are some­times killed for this rea­son. How­ever, tor­toises are rarely abun­dant enough to cause sig­nif­i­cant crop loss. Some farm­ers sim­ply move tor­toises a short dis­tance away. (De­Silva, 2004; Fife, 2007)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

While there are nat­ural threats to In­dian star tor­toises, such as pre­da­tion and flood­ing, none com­pare to the enor­mous threat posed by hu­mans. The com­bined threat of loss of habi­tat and har­vest­ing for food, as well as the high de­mand of the ex­otic pet trade in the U.S., Eu­rope, Mid­dle East, and south­east­ern Asian coun­tries, has caused this once abun­dant species to plum­met in num­bers. ("Hon­olulu Zoo", 2008; "Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; Das, 2002; De­Silva, 2004; Edqvist, 2008; Fife, 2007; Gaur, et al., 2006; Sekhar, et al., 2004; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

An es­ti­mate of the yearly toll on the In­dian pop­u­la­tion is 10,000 to 20,000 In­dian star tor­toises a year dis­ap­pear­ing from the wild, with peak col­lec­tion time be­tween July and Au­gust. Hunters col­lect them from their nat­ural habi­tat and sell them to mid­dle­men who sell them to smug­glers. The use of sea routes has in­creased as a means to smug­gle these an­i­mals be­cause se­cu­rity at air­ports has made it harder to sneak them out by air­plane. The smug­glers take them out of the coun­try and usu­ally sell them in Bangkok (Thai­land) or Malaysia. From there the tor­toises are shipped to var­i­ous mar­kets and deal­ers in Eu­rope and North Amer­ica where they can be worth over $150 each. Sadly, these tor­toises are hearty in the short term and can often sur­vive at least 15 days with­out food, mak­ing them eas­ier sub­jects for an­i­mal smug­glers. Every year, around 3000 In­dian star tor­toises are re­cov­ered from this il­le­gal trade. ("Hon­olulu Zoo", 2008; "Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; De­Silva, 2004; Edqvist, 2008; Fife, 2007; Gaur, et al., 2006; Sekhar, et al., 2004; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

In­dian star tor­toises are also being ex­tir­pated through their use as an in­gre­di­ent in some tra­di­tional Chi­nese med­i­cines. It is be­lieved that they are a source of en­ergy if con­sumed. Many also be­lieve that keep­ing these tur­tles in their home brings good luck. In ad­di­tion to med­i­c­i­nal con­sump­tion, in many parts of India these tur­tles are used heav­ily as a food source. For­tu­nately for the fu­ture of this tor­toise species, most of this type of con­sump­tion is pri­mar­ily by im­pov­er­ished peo­ple be­long­ing to tribal groups. As mean in­come in­creases, there is pre­dicted to be a de­crease in con­sump­tion of these tur­tles. ("Hon­olulu Zoo", 2008; "Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Edqvist, 2008; Gaur, et al., 2006; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

Un­for­tu­nately for these small tor­toises, there has been a boom in the con­ver­sion of for­est and grass­land area to agri­cul­tural land, fu­eled by the ever-grow­ing human pop­u­la­tion. This has caused huge tracts of land that was once suit­able In­dian star tor­toise habi­tat to be de­stroyed com­pletely. ("Hon­olulu Zoo", 2008; "Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; De­Silva, 2004; Edqvist, 2008; Fife, 2007; Gaur, et al., 2006; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

A final threat to In­dian star tor­toises is dis­ease. They are par­tic­u­larly sus­cep­ti­ble to pneu­mo­nia, res­pi­ra­tory dis­eases, and par­a­site over­growth when stressed by col­lec­tion, han­dling, and ship­ment, often under ter­ri­ble and in­hu­mane con­di­tions. Many wild-caught spec­i­mens sold in the pet trade are doomed to die from (ini­tially) un­sus­pected dis­ease. (Fife, 2007; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

Sev­eral steps have been taken to con­serve this species. In the In­dian Wildlife Act of 1972, the pos­ses­sion or trad­ing of In­dian star tor­toises was made il­le­gal in India. Un­for­tu­nately, en­force­ment of this law is dif­fi­cult and In­dian star tor­toises are com­monly found for sale in pet shops. They ben­e­fit from list­ing as a CITES ap­pen­dix II species, which reg­u­lates their in­ter­na­tional trade. ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; De­Silva, 2004; Edqvist, 2008; Fife, 2007; "IUCN 2008 Red List - Geoch­e­lone el­e­gans", 2008; Sub­ra­manyam, et al., 2006)

Presently In­dian star tor­toises still have a rather wide range, de­spite the many threats to the species. More re­search must be con­ducted while pop­u­la­tions are still ex­tant in order to learn more about this fas­ci­nat­ing tor­toise. It is cru­cial that this gen­tle species be ad­e­quately pro­tected be­fore the com­bi­na­tion of threats it faces dri­ves it to ex­tinc­tion. ("Man­hat­tan, Kansas", 2001; Das, 1995; De­Silva, 2004; Fife, 2007; "IUCN 2008 Red List - Geoch­e­lone el­e­gans", 2008; Sekhar, et al., 2004; Tabaka and Sen­neke, 2006)

• IUCN Red List

  Lower Risk - Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Lower Risk - Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  Appendix II

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Other Com­ments

This is con­sid­ered a fairly dif­fi­cult species to keep and breed in cap­tiv­ity, al­though cap­tive-bred spec­i­mens will cer­tainly be hardier than in­evitably stressed wild-caught an­i­mals. Use­ful ref­er­ences on care in­clude in­for­ma­tion on the World Ch­e­lon­ian Trust Web­site (Tabaka and Sen­neke, 2006) and in spe­cific her­peto­cul­tural books such as Fife (2007). (Fife, 2007; Tabaka and Sen­neke, 2006)

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Kyle Bouchard (au­thor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity, James Hard­ing (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity.

Ref­er­ences

2008. "Hon­olulu Zoo" (On-line). Star Tor­toise. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 12, 2008 at http://​www.​honoluluzoo.​org/​star_​tortoise.​htm.

In­ter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture and Nat­ural Re­sources. 2008. "IUCN 2008 Red List - Geoch­e­lone el­e­gans" (On-line). Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 12, 2008 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​details/​39430.

2001. "Man­hat­tan, Kansas" (On-line). In­dian Star Tor­toise. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 12, 2008 at http://​www.​ci.​manhattan.​ks.​us/​DocumentView.​asp?​DID=1301.

Das, I. 2002. A Pho­to­graphic Guide to Snakes and Other Rep­tiles of India. Sani­bel Is­land, Florida: Ralph Cur­tis Books.

Das, I. 1995. Tur­tles and Tor­toises of India. Bom­bay: Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity Press.

De­Silva, A. 2004. The Bi­ol­ogy and Sta­tus of the Star Tor­toise (Geoch­e­lone el­e­gans) in Sri Lanka. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Pro­tected Area Man­age­ment and Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Pro­ject: Sri Lankan Min­istry of En­vi­ron­ment and Nat­ural Re­sources.

Edqvist, U. 2008. "Tor­toise Trust" (On-line). Star Tor­toise Ba­sics. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 12, 2008 at http://​www.​tortoisetrust.​org/​articles/​elegans.​html.

Ernst, C., R. Bar­bour. 1989. Tur­tles of the World. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: Smith­son­ian In­sti­tu­tion Press.

Fife, J. 2007. Star Tor­toises. Ada, Ok­la­homa: Liv­ing Art Pub­lish­ing.

Gaur, A., A. Reddy, S. An­napoorni, B. Sat­yare­bala, S. Shiv­aja. 2006. The ori­gin of In­dian Star tor­toises (Geoch­e­lone el­e­gans) based on nu­clear and mi­to­chon­dr­ial analy­sis: a story of res­cue and repa­tri­a­tion. Con­ser­va­tion Ge­net­ics, 7 (2): 231-240. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 12, 2008 at http://​www.​springerlink.​com.​proxy1.​cl.​msu.​edu/​content/​pm1106381253lq2l/​fulltext.​pdf.

Kle­mens, M. 2000. Tur­tle Con­ser­va­tion. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: Smith­son­ian In­sti­tu­tion Press.

Ra­jarat­nam, L. 2008. "Mer­inews" (On-line). Ram­pant smug­gling of In­dian star tor­toises. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 12, 2008 at http://​lifestyle.​merinews.​com/​catFull.​jsp?​articleID=139011.

Sekhar, A., N. Gu­runathan, G. Anand­han. 2004. Star Tor­toise— A Vic­tim of the Ex­otic Pet Trade. Tiger­pa­per, 31 (1): 4-6.

Slavens, F., K. Slavens. 1999. Rep­tiles and Am­phib­ians in Cap­tiv­ity: Breed­ing, Longevity, and In­ven­tory. Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton: Slave­ware.

Sub­ra­manyam, G., S. Lath­eef, B. Prasad, S. Chan­drasekara Pil­lai. 2006. "A DATA­BASE ON EN­DAN­GERED AN­I­MALS AT SE­SHACHA­LAM HILLS" (On-line). GEOCH­E­LONE EL­E­GANS. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 12, 2008 at http://​svimstpt.​ap.​nic.​in/​EndangeredAnimals/​contributors.​html.

Tabaka, C., D. Sen­neke. 2006. "World Ch­e­lon­ian Trust— Star Tor­toise Care Sheet" (On-line). Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 23, 2008 at http://​www.​chelonia.​org/​Articles/​Geleganscare.​htm.