Mercedes, at home, alert, and on snail patrol.
Mercedes is back home. And he’s still alone. So Patti and I continue on our hunt for a female with which to partner Mercedes.

Mercedes is an Asian Keeled Box Turtle, Pyxidea (once Geoemyda) mouhoti. Now an Endangered species, a mere few years back this interesting turtle was a major component of the herp trade. And coinciding with the last statement, this taxon that was once so readily available, inexpensive, and easy to keep is now (year of 2020) almost impossible to obtain and cannot, without an almost impossible to get Federal Permit, be offered in interstate trade. So what happened to all of them? There are various explanations, but two that are almost certainly accurate are that they were just a 7” long brown turtle and that they were inexpensive. In the American hobbyist’s pet trade, if some bucks, preferably big bucks, cannot be made by breeding a herp there is no incentive to either keep or breed it. And all of the Mercedes’ of the pet trade fell into these categories.

A few dedicated hobbyist/breeders did hold on to a few of these turtles and a few, now a precious few, are produced each year. But it seems now that mortality pretty much equals captive production and those few lucky owners are holding tightly to the examples on hand. Breeding males can wreak havoc on the more placid females and if not closely monitored injury or death of the female may occur.

Threats to wild populations include habitat destruction including deforestation as well as for food and mostly (probably all) bogus traditional home remedy medications. The pet trade has also figured strongly in population reductions.

I mentioned above that Mercedes (now a 30 year captive) is “back home.” For the last 2 years he has been on an apparently unsuccessful breeding loan to a chelonian breeder in the northeast. We’re glad he’s back, and now we are scouring the USA for a female that we could get on breeding loan. Please, please, if you know of anyone maintaining this turtle as a pet please drop us a line. We’d like to be a part of the future availability of this species in the USA.