Home's hinged tortoise (Kinixys homeana)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 13255664

The present project aims at: (1) reviewing the knowledge on the distribution of these four threatened species in Togo (West Africa), and getting novel distribution data for some main areas of the country (southwestern forests and northern bushy savannahs); (2) once identified some noteworthy populations of the target species, collecting field data on their population ecology, with emphasis on demographic aspects and habitat use.

Thus, the main activities of our projects are:

(i)                  exploring suitable study sites including appropriate habitats for the study species for collection of detailed field data;

(ii)                 measuring for morphometric data, and individually marking the various specimens in order to get data on the size structure of the populations and on their numerosity;

(iii)               surveying market places and the reptile farms (given that Togo is one of the three leading countries for the international pet trade of reptiles in Africa);

(iv)              analyzing the collected dataset;

(v)                producing a series of peer-reviewed contributions based on the data collected in this project, as well as editing an action plan for the conservation of these species at the level of Togo, to be used by the competent governmental and NGO agencies.

Obviously, a main issue of this project will be the careful definition of the local threats that these species are facing, and the assessment of their conservation status at the country level.