Male or female?

[Anyfoot]

Hi all.
Just want some opinions on this redfoots gender. It's SCL is 13". Once thought to be male then female. Never been seen flashing.
Thanks.

 

[N2TORTS]

Female ....

 

[Anyfoot]

Female ....

What convinced you female. Do you agree it has some male looking features.
I agree BTW that its female.

 

[N2TORTS]

Tail shape and length, the anal scute/pelvic girdle shape (roundish to help guide eggs when laying - Males will be much wider apart and also develop a "thickened" area here....as well as overall shape from looking from above. Especially with that species of redfoot.

 

[Anyfoot]

Tail shape and length, the anal scute/pelvic girdle shape (roundish to help guide eggs when laying - Males will be much wider apart and also develop a "thickened" area here....as well as overall shape from looking from above. Especially with that species of redfoot.

Yep.
Why the concave plastron. It's quite deep. Also I thought males had a longer neck to eyeball the female during copulation. This one has an extremely long neck.

 

[N2TORTS]

Well from my personal "quickie answers" I would call it an evolutionary-past and present thing. Like males mounting males (dominance) or in some cases females mounting another smaller younger female (same dominance/intemidating factor). There have been studies from (Guix.) "Masculinization of captive females of Chelonoidis carbonaria"
(I'll have to find the papers and or link for you- or I'm sure others have it in here as well)...many captive bred Rf's can and will develop male-like attributes. One theory is concave plastrons,longer tails, and anal scute gaps that are sometimes too small to pass a developed egg - Hence deeper concave's, longer tails and wider anal scute gaps may help with this. I have some large Brazilin Females who show these same characteristics' such as your tort above. You normally notice these in large 12" and up, very mature females as opposed to 8"-10" size. Perhaps some of the RF experts will chime in and add more to this.

 

[Anyfoot]

Well from my personal "quickie answers" I would call it an evolutionary-past and present thing. Like males mounting males (dominance) or in some cases females mounting another smaller younger female (same dominance/intemidating factor). There have been studies from (Guix.) "Masculinization of captive females of Chelonoidis carbonaria"
(I'll have to find the papers and or link for you- or I'm sure others have it in here as well)...many captive bred Rf's can and will develop male-like attributes. One theory is concave plastrons,longer tails, and anal scute gaps that are sometimes too small to pass a developed egg - Hence deeper concave's, longer tails and wider anal scute gaps may help with this. I have some large Brazilin Females who show these same characteristics' such as your tort above. You normally notice these in large 12" and up, very mature females as opposed to 8"-10" size. Perhaps some of the RF experts will chime in and add more to this.

Yeah. I have read those papers a while back on the theories of females taking certain male attributes in cb reds. This(you) is the 1st I've seen it mentioned on here. Thanks Jeff.

 

[Anyfoot]

Well @ZEROPILOT , JD beat you too it, another fine example of, its all about the anal scutes and tail form/size. This female is seriously concave on the plastron.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Well @ZEROPILOT , JD beat you too it, another fine example of, its all about the anal scutes and tail form/size. This female is seriously concave on the plastron.

I would have guessed female from the tail alone. But she is quite dished.
My guessing record isn't really so hot.