tort I.D.

[dieter]

Hi guys, Im new to forums so please forgive me if I have put this in the wrong place.
Last Monday my partner bought me a tort for my birthday (great gift as I have always wanted one).
Anyway, I emailed the place where it was bought to find out the species and no one got back, so I figured this would be the best place to get a definitive answer.
so please if anyone can id this tort for me I would be eternally grateful, also any advice you wish to give would be helpful.
I believe that this tort had been fed the wrong things because the pet shot said that tomatoes were its food and I know that to be wrong (I live in malta and we generally dont see tomatoes growing wild lol, its all scrub and cacti etc)and his shell looks a bit grubby, how other than soaking which I have done 3 times this week, can I clean him up. and is there anything such as oil I can get to help keep his shell healthy or is that nonsense?
thanks in advance

 

[FLINTUS]

It is a spur thigh tortoise-testudo graecas- of some kind IMO. It looks to me at least like testudo graeca marokkensis but that would be unusual considering your location.

 

[dieter]

hi thanks for that, I have just read up on wikkie and it says about spurs on thighs, so I went out and took a look at his thighs, no spurs. so that still leaves me wondering exactly which he is. still I had already guessed he must be testudo from the pics I have seen, but you have at least confirmed that much for me thanks

 

[FLINTUS]

could be a hermanni maybe?

 

[dieter]

thats what I am beginning to think, thank goodnes for the internet lol all the searching around has made me dizzy. but that is what I am going with. at least now I can tailor my care for him.

 

[FLINTUS]

It's either a graecs or hermanni, both have relatively similar care. Not high humidity, can cope with very low temps, hibernate-except for some exceptions in a few graces- eat mainly weeds with a bit of grass (will eat loads of clover in the wild), need a high basking temp and ambient is same as room temp, and substrate along the lines of soil.

 

[GBtortoises]

It's a Libyan Greek, Testudo graeca cyrenaica.

 

[FLINTUS]

So it was spur thigh then? You're sure it's not Moroccan? By the way, google autocorrect is doing weird things with g r a e c a lol