I just finished writing up a blog post with detailed diagrams, pictures and descriptions of male and female Russian tortoise tails. Here's the link: http://tortaddiction.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-helpful-guide-to-determining-sex-of.html
If there is interest, I am happy to re-write this as TFO-post, if it would be a useful link on TFO itself, rather than just as a blog post.
(here is one diagram, but there are also actual photos of real tortoise tails)
Hopefully this will help you determine whether your tortoise is a boy or a girl. If you are keeping just one and have no plans to breed, it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. One of our female tortoises has a boy-name. I am sure there are many male tortoises out there with female names.
Please also keep in mind that a tortoise needs to be 4.5" - 5" long (measured by placing the tortoise onto a ruler) in order to be able to know reliably. All tortoises start out looking really darn female.
If there is interest, I am happy to re-write this as TFO-post, if it would be a useful link on TFO itself, rather than just as a blog post.
(here is one diagram, but there are also actual photos of real tortoise tails)
Hopefully this will help you determine whether your tortoise is a boy or a girl. If you are keeping just one and have no plans to breed, it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. One of our female tortoises has a boy-name. I am sure there are many male tortoises out there with female names.
Please also keep in mind that a tortoise needs to be 4.5" - 5" long (measured by placing the tortoise onto a ruler) in order to be able to know reliably. All tortoises start out looking really darn female.
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I really love this name and have got it into my head that he is a boy 100%, however from seeing the pictures I now think he's a girl.. He's still very small possibly 6-7months old, so is this far too early to decide? Her/his tail could grow? 
