How to Tell if a Turtle Is Male or Female (Guide With Pictures)

If you own a pet turtle, at some point, you will want to know if it’s a boy or a girl. But in most cases, this is easier said than done, unless you have a well-structured guide with pictures that will tell you what is the best way to find out the gender of your turtle, like this guide right here.

The best way to determine the gender of a turtle is by looking at the length of its claws, the shape of the shell, the length of the tail, the position of the cloaca, and the shape of the snout. All of those characteristics are different in male and female turtles.

Those differences are usually quite subtle, but if you look closely at your turtle, and compare it with the pictures in the article you will definitely notice them. So let’s start with one of the easiest-to-spot differences, the length of the claws.

The Length of the Claws

The first thing that you should look at in order to figure out if your turtle is male or female are the claws. And this is because males have visibly longer laws than females.

Here are two pictures, the first one showing the claws of a female turtle, and the second the claws of a male turtle.

Female Red Eared Slider. Photo by Jim, the Photographer on Flickr

There are two main reasons why male turtles have longer claws than females.

The first one is to help the male turtle have a better grip on the female’s shell when they are mating. And the second one is to help attract females in the first place, as during the mating ritual a lot of turtles use their claws to make some specific sounds to attract females.

The Shape of the Shell

The next thing that you should check is the shape of the shell, more exactly the shape of the plastron, as males have a concave (curved in) plastron, while the females have a flat plastron.

Photos by braindamaged217 on Flickr

The reason for this difference is also related to mating behavior, as the male needs to get on top of the female, and they need to maintain some balance.

In this picture, you can see multiple painted turtles. But the second one from the left and the last one from the right has a more concave shape than the rest. While it can be a little hard to tell from a picture, in reality, you can immediately tell the difference.

The Length of the Tail

Females have shorter and thicker tails, while males have longer and skinnier tails.

Female Red-Eared Slider. Photo by birder125 on Flickr

Male Red-Eared Slider. Photo by Jon Sullivan on Flickr

This is usually a very good way to tell if a turtle is male or female, but there is one thing that can easily mislead you, and that thing is a nipped tail, which is very common among pet turtles, more than in wild turtles.

Small pet turtles are usually kept together in very tight spaces, and some of them will occasionally mistake the tail of another turtle for something that they can eat, so they will bite it. And as a result that turtle will grow up having a smaller tail than it would have otherwise.

This can also happen in the wild, but it happens rarely since turtles don’t spend that much time near other turtles, and they have a lot more space.

So make sure to take a closer look at that tail and see if it looks whole, otherwise, you could mix up the gender of your turtle.

The Position of the Cloaca

The cloaca is the posterior orifice that serves as the only opening for the digestive, reproductive and urinary tract, and it can be really helpful in figuring out if a turtle is male or female, even if all cloacas look the same.

Females have their cloaca positioned near the base of their tail, while males have it closer to the middle of the end of the tail.

Turtles use the cloaca for a lot of things, they use it when they lay the eggs, they use it when they fertilize the eggs, they use it to breathe underwater, and a lot more. If you want to know more about the cloaca you should check out this article: Do Turtles Have Gills?

The Shape of the Snout

Males have slightly longer and pointier snouts than females.

The difference is very subtle but if you look closely you can notice it. So, here are two up-close pictures of a male turtle snout, and a female turtle snout.

As you can see the difference is very subtle, but it’s definitely there.

As much as I’ve researched I haven’t been able to find a reason or use for this slight difference in shape, so at the moment there is probably no information about this, or maybe it doesn’t have any benefit at all. The only interesting thing I found about this is that during the courtship phase some male turtles will shoot a jet of water through their noses at the faces of the females, to attract them. This is not necessarily correlated to the difference in shape but it’s definitely funny.

The Size of the Turtle

In general female turtles are bigger than male turtles.

Photo by D.Fletcher on Flickr

This is not the case for all turtle species, in some cases the exact opposite is true, but for most common turtle species this is the case, for example, red-eared sliders, painted turtles, yellow-bellied sliders, and more.

This is a great method to tell apart males from females, but there are some problems with it. First of all, you must first know the age of your turtle, if you don’t you can easily make a wrong assumption.

For example, female red-eared sliders can reach a size of about 12 inches (30 centimeters), while males can reach a size of about 10 inches (25 centimeters). So if you were to measure a young female red-eared slider you can easily mistake it for a male if you use only size to determine its gender.

This is probably the best method that you can use if you are comparing two turtles that have been born at around the same time, have been raised in similar conditions, and eating similar amounts of food (food plays a crucial role in how fast a turtle grows), but in other conditions, it’s not the most reliable method.

The Color of the Eyes

Looking at what color are the eyes of a turtle is a great way to tell if it’s a male or a female. The only reason why this difference isn’t at the top of the list is that it only applies to certain species, and there are well over 300 different species. But for those that have different eye colors, this is a sure way to tell them apart.

For example, the male common box turtles and the spotted turtles often havered colored eyes, while females have yellow or yellow-brown eyes.

Male Box Turtle Photo by c w on Flickr

Female Box Turtle Photo by Karen on Flickr

There is no known benefit of the red color, but most biologists assume that it can be an advantage during the mating season and that females could be attracted to male turtles that have brighter shades of red.

Overall turtles can have a lot of different eye colors, ranging from simple brown, to red, to orange to blue, and to black. And their pupils can have a lot of different shapes, from dots to stripes, and even stars. If you would like to know more about this, and see some pictures as well you should check out my article: What Color Are Turtles Eyes? (With Pictures)

Different Patterns

This is another difference that only applies to certain species. For a lot of common species like red-eared sliders, painted turtles, map turtles, etc. the patterns on the shell are somewhat random, and they differ from turtle to turtle. But there are some species where the males and females have distinct patterns on their shells and skin.

The Best Way to Tell if a Turtle Is Male or Female

Those are the main ways in which you can tell apart a male turtle from a female turtle, but which one is the best?

When it comes to turtles, there is no best way to tell them apart. The best thing that you can do is to look at all of the differences that we discussed and try to make your best guess. In most cases, if you pay close attention to those differences you will get the gender of the turtle right. Even biologists use the same differences that we discussed when they try to determine the gender of a turtle, as there is no other way.

Now that we covered the differences, there are two small things that we need to discuss, and those are when it’s the best time to tell the gender of your turtle, and what are the big differences between a male and a female turtle.

The Best Time to Tell the Gender of a Turtle

As you might have noticed most differences between male and female turtles have something to do with reproduction, so the best time to try and determine the gender of a turtle it’s when it reaches maturity. If you try to do that before, there is a good chance that you will fail.

As for when turtles reach maturity, it depends from species to species, as maturity is closely related to size, and size is closely related to their diet, which means that pet turtles will most likely reach maturity before wild turtles.

In general, you can expect turtles to reach maturity somewhere between 3 and 5 years, depending on their diet. For most turtle species a male is considered mature when he reaches a length of at least 4 inches (10 centimeters), females are considered to have reached maturity when they are about 5 inches (12 centimeters) in length.

But different turtle species can reach different sizes, a mud turtle for example won’t grow bigger than 3 or 4 inches (7 and 10 centimeters), while a red-eared slider can get as big as 12 inches (30 centimeters). To find out the average size of a turtle you can either use the search function of our site and type the name of the species that you are interested in and “size” or you could type the same thing into Google. And if your turtle has reached that size, or if it’s very close then you can try to determine its gender.

If you want to find out the gender of a baby or juvenile turtle, the principles are the same, but the chances of being exact are extremely slow, as the differences haven’t fully developed.

There aren’t that many differences between a male and a female turtle, except for one.

The Main Difference Between a Male and a Female Turtle

The main difference between a male and a female turtle is that the female will lay eggs every year, while the males won’t.

Female turtles will lay eggs every year, even if there is no male around. While the eggs won’t be fertilized and no baby turtles will come out of them, the process is the same.

Taking care of a female turtle that is about to lay eggs is not very hard, you barely have to do anything, so don’t worry about this part. But if you are curious about what you have to do when your turtle is pregnant you can read this article: How to Tell if Your Turtle Is Pregnant.

Another small difference is that females will probably eat a little more since they are bigger, but the difference is not noticeable, so I wouldn’t count this as a disadvantage.

Final Thoughts

So this is how you can tell if a turtle is male or female, all you have to do is to look at a couple of things, like the size of the claws, the position of the cloaca, etc.

Since most of the differences between male and female turtles are relatively small, the most useful thing that you could have is another turtle of a different gender, this way you can have what to compare your turtle, but this is something that most people don’t have access to. So the next best thing that you can have are pictures, like the ones in this article.

The pictures in this article are good for most turtle species, but if you are interested in species-specific pictures, you should use the search function of the website and search for the species that you are interested in, as we have multiple articles dedicated to specific species, which are accompanied by pictures.

And if you need help identifying the gender of your turtle don’t hesitate to leave a comment, or send a mail with some pictures of your turtle attached.