Female mounting female, or is 'she' a 'he'??!

[biochemnerd808]

SO, I am familiar with how to sex a Russian tortoise. I have a fully-grown female, and a male, and have fostered several males. So I'm not a n00b.

However, I picked up a pair of female Russians from somebody on Tuesday. I checked, of course, and they look 100% female. Just now I heard the tell-tale squeaking of tortoises mating coming from the other room that has the quarantine enclosure... surprised, I checked, and one of the new females was mounting the other, squeaking. Do females do this as dominance behavior? Or might I have a young male on hand?



I attached a pic, they both LOOK to be females to me. Jill is just shy of 5 inches (she was the one mounting), and Mila is just shy of 6 inches. My other female is 7.5 inches, and her tail looks just like Jill and Mila's tail, short and stubby, with a pucker-shaped vent; whereas Roz's (male) tale is long, with a slit-shaped vent.

 

[murdocjunior]

looks female to me

 

[biochemnerd808]

looks female to me

Yeah, it definitely does to me, too. But why is she mounting the other female, squeaking like a male?!

 

[Laura]

they are very territorial.. one is cominating the other, and it can cause stress. can you seperate or make a very large area for them to be in with plenty of hides?

 

[biochemnerd808]

They have been together (with their previous owner) since they were hatchlings. I can separate them into 2 quarantine rubbermaids - they will join my other 2 in a large outdoor enclosure in the Spring, but in the winter the largest tort table I have is only 6'x3' - lots of hide opportunities, but still small enough that they would be territorial, I think.

At least it's the smaller one 'dominating' the larger...

they are very territorial.. one is cominating the other, and it can cause stress. can you seperate or make a very large area for them to be in with plenty of hides?