diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 6ae493c240b7cf49032ebfdaa447d31d9b182ea2..1dc98f05db7dccd10da1ce56ac5e72f611703f28 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -20,10 +20,7 @@ addons:
 before_install:
     - git clone --branch master --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-test.git
     - git clone --branch master --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-variation.git
-    - git clone https://github.com/bioperl/bioperl-live.git
-    - cd bioperl-live
-    - git checkout bioperl-release-1-6-1
-    - cd ../
+    - git clone -b bioperl-release-1-6-1 --depth 1 https://github.com/bioperl/bioperl-live.git
 
 
 install: