# Boy or Girl?



## HrdHeaded1 (Aug 1, 2008)

Howdy again. 
I'm still new to the torts so I was wondering if you could help me out again. Here is a picture of Bill's belly lol. Everyone here seems to think it's a girl so I figure why not show you the bottom half and make sure right? Before I change his name to a her name.

Thanks you guys!


----------



## RTfanatic (Aug 1, 2008)

Looks like a girl to me! How about Belle?


----------



## egyptiandan (Aug 2, 2008)

It is a male.  No name change needed.

Danny


----------



## Crazy1 (Aug 2, 2008)

Regardless what is wrong with Billy for a girl or boy??? I have a neice thats nick name is Billy then theres Billy Jean King, lots of female Billys as well as male Billys, My Son-inlaw is a Billy.


----------



## chelonologist (Aug 2, 2008)

Hmmm, I'm sticking with female. No doubt.


----------



## egyptiandan (Aug 2, 2008)

Here are some pictures of males and a male and female. 
http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/tortoise/generalcare.shtml
check out the tail on the male upsidedown.
http://www.llu.edu/llu/grad/natsci/hayes/research-l-desert-tortoises.html

Danny


----------



## stells (Aug 2, 2008)

how are you sticking you didn't reply in the first place lol


----------



## egyptiandan (Aug 2, 2008)

I'm looking at both Leslie  I'm going by the plastron shape near the tail, which is a sharp V. Males really don't have a very much bigger tail than a female, but they do have more tail after the vent. Females have almost no tail after the vent, very stubby. 

Danny


----------



## JustAnja (Aug 2, 2008)

Male Desert Tortoises typically have very long gular scutes as does this one. They use them in combat with other males. Females do not display near as long gular scutes. Im going with male, I had 4 male DTs when I lived in Pheonix years ago and only female.


----------



## chelonologist (Aug 2, 2008)

stells said:


> how are you sticking you didn't reply in the first place lol



I did, in one of the author's previous threads:

http://tortoiseforum.org/new-to-desert-torts-i-need-some-advice-t-3585.html

short gular + flat plastron + small angle of anal scutes = female


----------



## chelonologist (Aug 2, 2008)

Given the ambiguity of responses regarding the sex of this tortoise, I should mention that I've seen some captive raised males that exhibited strong female characters, possibly as the result of nutritional deficiencies. I remember a male that was brought into the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center in Las Vegas that had a completely flat plastron and a relatively short, uncurved gular. So it's possible that this is a male that's exhibiting some fairly strong female characteristics. 

A couple other characters we can look at include the chin glands (which should be large and swollen in males), and the rear toenails (which should be long and curved in females). 

HrdHeaded1, can you post pictures of either of these characters?


----------



## Yvonne G (Aug 2, 2008)

One thing is fairly obvious in the comparison photo link submitted by Dan: The male's anal scutes are in a definite "v" shape while those of the female are more flattened out, not even in a "u" shape, but more softened. I would have to revise my first opinion and say Billy is a young male that hasn't developed his gular or curved plastron yet. In fact, in the very first photo of Billy posted on a different thread, the gular almost looks as if it has been filed smooth.

Yvonne


----------



## chelonologist (Aug 2, 2008)

I just looked at that first photo, Yvonne, and you can clearly see swollen chin glands - a definite male character (http://tortoiseforum.org/attachment.php?aid=1269). 

The 'V' shape of the anal scutes on Billy looks very female-like. Check out these comparisons of wild desert tortoises (two females in the top photos; two males on the bottom). You can see that females typically exhibit a straight V-shape whereas males exhibit a curved shape to their anal scutes - almost leaf-shaped:







It's also hard to detect from a two-dimensional photo whether these tortoises have a flat plastron, something we're also not able to assess with Billy's photo.

I will suspend my previous assessment that Billy is a female


----------



## dustytrailzz (Oct 24, 2008)

Well I sure would like to know! My DT looks exactly like 'Billy'. I thought mine was a male at first too. But according to pics, mine is a female, howwever 'she' has a concave underside- it's not flat.


----------



## Yvonne G (Oct 24, 2008)

dustytrailzz said:


> Well I sure would like to know! My DT looks exactly like 'Billy'. I thought mine was a male at first too. But according to pics, mine is a female, howwever 'she' has a concave underside- it's not flat.



Young males don't have the concave plastron. If yours does, its definitely a male. Young desert tortoises...almost full grown, but still too young to have developed the concave plastron, look very similar. You have to compare the length of the tail. A female's tail is VERY short and the male's tail is longer. But if you don't have them side-by-side to compare it can be difficult.

Yvonne


----------



## longbeachskunk (Oct 24, 2008)

Male or female, it's a beautiful tortoise!


----------

