will a leopard mate with a russian

[pickles]

I have two Russian tortoises, male & female. I also have a male Leopard tortoise. I was wondering if the leopard will try to mate with the female Russian. I have a fairly large outdoor habitat that I was planning on housing them in for the summer. The leopard is about 4 years old and has been proud of his manhood lately, I think he may be hitting puberty The Russians are a bit older. Everyone is healthy and do not show any signs of agressive behavior at all. At this time they are not living together, seperate tortoise tables, but I have had them together on occasions. No one really pays attention to the other.
Thoughts anyone?

 

[Yvonne G]

No, they won't interbreed. And its really not a good idea to house different species of tortoise together. They might make each other sick or even dead. Each specie of tortoise comes with internal pathogens that that particular specie has evolved to live safely with, but when the other specie of tort comes in contact with those pathogens, he hasn't evolved with them and has no tolerance for them and could get sick or die. And it doesn't happen right away. Might take months or years and by the time the tortoise does get sick or die, you will have forgotten that they were housed together and that's the reason. Maybe not, but not good to take the chance.

Yvonne