The
time spent in the crevice of release before beginning the homing
differed among the tortoises. While some left immediately after the day
of translocation, the male 942HSL tarried for 83 days then started
homing. Homing usually happened during daytime although we cannot rule
out homing at night as only very limited night-time tracking was done.
No tortoise was observed homing in the company of another tortoise. The
homing tortoises usually avoided entering any rock crevices on their way
and often slept under dead logs, bushes or fences (e.g. fig 2) until
they reached their home territories. However, the males 643HSLand 662HSL
after several days of homing began to occasionally enter into and out of
rock crevices on the way either inhabited or uninhabited by other
Pancake tortoises.
Homing trajectories. — Homing tortoises did not follow a
straight line. However, it was observed that individuals that had been
collected from the same crevice and released together in another crevice
tended to follow similar trajectories moving home (fig. 3). This
characteristic movement pattern was remarkable in the tortoise pairs
that were interchanged to each other’s home crevice i.e.
576HSL♀ and 594HSL♂ (moving westward
to Station 4 from Station 6) and 560HSL♀ and
543HSL♂ (moving eastward to Station 6 from station 4).
These pairs amazingly crossed paths each travelling the opposite
direction.
An exception however occurred for the pair 910HSL♀ and
662HSL♂ (collected from the southwest of the crevice
of translocation) whose homing trajectories initially differed. The
female first headed west, then seemed to get lost as it turned and moved
farther north. This tortoise however took a sharp turn and approached
home from the north. On the other hand, the male partner (662HSL), first
headed south but after some days changed its course and aligned itself
with the track followed by the female 910HSL. The male 643HSL, also
collected from the southwest, first moved southward, then turned west
and approached home facing north.