Marginated sex

Afbhappy · Aug 30, 2019

Well, I took Willard (1.5 year old marginated) in to the tort expert to see if he was a Mrs. or a Mr. The guy said with all certainty that he was a she. He showed me her tail and how short it is and the distance from here to there, so on and so forth. She also doesn't have a big indentation on the underside of her shell. Imagine my surprise when within the week I saw something (possibly genitalia?) sticking out when she was straining to flip herself over. It was pink and moved in an out of her(?) tail. Because of how it behaved I decided it was nothing to be concerned about as far as Willard's health. Ive read that both male and female torts can stick out their genitals like that. I suppose we are just a gender neutral household until this mystery is solved.

Final question: what do you guys think- male or female? or if not genitalia what is this sticking out of the butt hole?? haha

thanks
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Cathie G · Aug 30, 2019

Afbhappy said:
Well, I took Willard (1.5 year old marginated) in to the tort expert to see if he was a Mrs. or a Mr. The guy said with all certainty that he was a she. He showed me her tail and how short it is and the distance from here to there, so on and so forth. She also doesn't have a big indentation on the underside of her shell. Imagine my surprise when within the week I saw something (possibly genitalia?) sticking out when she was straining to flip herself over. It was pink and moved in an out of her(?) tail. Because of how it behaved I decided it was nothing to be concerned about as far as Willard's health. Ive read that both male and female torts can stick out their genitals like that. I suppose we are just a gender neutral household until this mystery is solved.

Final question: what do you guys think- male or female? or if not genitalia what is this sticking out of the butt hole?? haha

thanks
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Oh my garsh...too funny. I'm not an expert but post a picture and someone can tell you better then me. I always thought that 1.5 years would be too young to tell but I'd like to see the answers you get.

Cheryl Hills · Aug 31, 2019

Afbhappy said:
Well, I took Willard (1.5 year old marginated) in to the tort expert to see if he was a Mrs. or a Mr. The guy said with all certainty that he was a she. He showed me her tail and how short it is and the distance from here to there, so on and so forth. She also doesn't have a big indentation on the underside of her shell. Imagine my surprise when within the week I saw something (possibly genitalia?) sticking out when she was straining to flip herself over. It was pink and moved in an out of her(?) tail. Because of how it behaved I decided it was nothing to be concerned about as far as Willard's health. Ive read that both male and female torts can stick out their genitals like that. I suppose we are just a gender neutral household until this mystery is solved.

Final question: what do you guys think- male or female? or if not genitalia what is this sticking out of the butt hole?? haha

thanks
View media item 10453 View media item 10452

Can’t see the pictures. Says I don’t have permission

Yvonne G · Aug 31, 2019

Usually on the Mediterranean type tortoises, you can tell sex by the description of the cloaca - a star-shaped cloaca generally means female and a slit shape (like your tortoise) means male. He's still too small to have the more general male characteristics, but I'm going with male.

Afbhappy · Aug 31, 2019

@Yvonne G, thank you! that was very helpful! I looked up some more info about star and slit shaped torts and it looks like you are right! I am voting male on Willard. The information on the web about torts is so jumbled up, I usually try to decipher what everything means for Willard based on what people say about all kinds of other more popular species. I will give it some years yet, but Im thinking ill stick to male ponouns for now. Darn, I was getting excited about eggs. @Cathie G , There is a video, Im not sure everyone can see it, but I posted to the best of my ability.

Marginated sex

Is Willard a Mr. or Mrs?

Male

Female

Afbhappy

New Member

Cathie G

Well-Known Member

Cheryl Hills

Well-Known Member

Yvonne G

Old Timer

Afbhappy

New Member

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