This may be a stupid question, but how many toes are Hermann's tortoises supposed to have? My year and a half old has four toenails on each foot, but the five month old baby has five toenails on each front foot. There is a little tiny "thumb" toenail there in the front, but not on the back feet. Both torts are hermanni boettgeri from what I know. Is this normal?

Hermanns can either have 4 or 5 front claws. Hermanns are the closest relatives to Russians, so sometimes share the 4 toed front legs.

Danny

It's not a stupid question at all. This is a subject I have covered in my book because I question a large amount of literature surrounding this topic that is already out there. It has been said by previous authors that T. hermanni boettgeri is to have 5 claws on each foot but that extremely large examples residing in Bulgaria exhibit 4 claws instead. There has also been literature stating that Testudo hermanni hermanni is to always feature 5 claws on each foot. All of this is highly questionable as I have seen countless numbers of these tortoises from each subspecies, and from several localities that can have either. I have animals in my collection that have 4 claws on one foot and 5 on another. I have animals that are quite small and are fully grown that feature 4 claws on each foot yet this is supposed to be a trait only seen in the Bulgarian giants. I also have a few Testudo hermanni hermanni that have 4 claws on every foot. Why is this? There are a few theories, one being cross breeding. Unless you know for certain that your animal has come from a specific locality you may have an individual who's father may have had 5 claws on each foot and who's mother had 4. The tortoise of course is perfectly healthy. Hermann's tortoises like most other Mediterranean tortoises are surrounded by mass confusion when it comes to taxonomy and proper identification. In my opinion there really is no amount of claws that they are "supposed" to have. Some hold true to the typical 5 while many, many others symply do not.

-Chris