Male or female?

Lars Taylor

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Hi,
We are Lars and Dagmar. We live in the Netherlands and own different tortoises. We own 4 Indian Star tortoises, 2 pancake tortoises, 2 marginated tortoises and 4 greek tortoises.
These are 3 of our greek tortoises. They are still young, but we are curious if someone can tell wheter they are male or female?

Greetings from Haarlem.

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SweetGreekTorts

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Tucson, AZ
Welcome to the group! Those pictures actually look like Hermann's tortoises, not Greeks. The Hermann's have 2 black bands on their plastron, while the Greeks have random black spotting.

Here's a link that has photos of each of the different subspecies of Greeks:
https://www.hermannihaven.com/extras

And this one is for the Hermann's:
https://www.hermannihaven.com/comparing-hermann-s-tortoise-subspe

The diet and care for both species is literally the same, but if you're wanting to get into breeding, you'll need to know what you have so you don't end up mixing species or subspecies.

As for determining their genders, I'll tag @HermanniChris as he would know. He works with both the Greeks and the Hermann's tortoises.
 

TurtleBug

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Welcome to the group! Those pictures actually look like Hermann's tortoises, not Greeks. .

In Europe, Hermanns tortoises are also known as Greek tortoises while T. Graeca are there often called spur-thighs. Using common names can be confusing.
 

TurtleBug

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Last edited:

Lars Taylor

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Here’s a link to an example of Hermanns’ tortoise being called “Greek tortoise” (in German “Griechische Landschildkröte”.

http://www.terrarium-welt.de/griechische_landschildkroete__testudo_h_boettgerie.html

I don’t know the above website, I just picket it randomly.

Ps. There are some typos in my above post. For example, it should be T. graeca. I can’t edit the post anymore...
Sorry, schouldnt have called them greek tortoises. I bought them as testudo hermanni boetgeri. Thanks for the answers so far[emoji1303][emoji1303]
 

SweetGreekTorts

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In Europe, Hermanns tortoises are also known as Greek tortoises while T. Graeca are there often called spur-thighs. Using common names can be confusing.
That's a shame, because the Testudo hermanni and Testudo graeca are two completely different species and should be respected as such. In the States, some owners do get confused due to similar appearances, but both are treated as separate species. The Testudo hermanni are the Hermann's, and the Testudo graeca are the Greeks.

I prefer to use their official scientific names (like Testudo graeca terrestris) but so many folks only know them by their fancy nicknames (such as "Golden Greek").

I do know in Europe the Greeks are also called "spur-thigh," which is accurate. Sadly, in the States "spur-thigh" is too often used with the Sulcata tortoise. Too many breeders here are lazy and choose to rely on nicknames, often trying to develop new (and highly inaccurate) ones to attract more customers. I'll never be a part of that bandwagon, I'm too "old school."
 

TurtleBug

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That's a shame, because the Testudo hermanni and Testudo graeca are two completely different species and should be respected as such. In the States, some owners do get confused due to similar appearances, but both are treated as separate species. The Testudo hermanni are the Hermann's, and the Testudo graeca are the Greeks.l."

I don’t think I was very clear explaining what I meant. Sorry about that.

T. hermanni and T. graeca are two different species in Europe and everywhere else. The Latin names are always the same, just the common names can vary. Our common name “Greek” and their common name “Greek” can at times be referring to two different species.

In the US, the “Greek tortoise” is always T. graeca, but in Europe the common name “Greek” tortoise can also refer to T. hermanni. I see this often in titles of German language tortoise books when I am browsing for books online.

Here’s a link to German language Wikipedia. Again, they call T. hermanni a “Greek” tortoise (Griechische Landschildkröte).

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griechische_Landschildkröte

Excerpt: “Die Griechische Landschildkröte (Testudo hermanni) ist eine von drei im europäischen Teil des Mittelmeerraumes beheimateten Landschildkrötenarten der Gattung Testudound kommt in zwei Unterarten vor (Testudo hermanni hermanni und Testudo hermanni boettgeri).”

And here’s a link to a German language book about “Greek” tortoises (T. hermanni, Griechische Landschildkröte) on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1470967030/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20
 

Lars Taylor

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Thnx for learning me the different names of tortoises.
So nobody knows if my tortoises are male or female?[emoji848]
 

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