If you own a pet tortoise, 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 tortoise, like this guide right here.
The best way to determine the gender of a tortoise 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 tortoises.
Those differences are usually quite subtle, but if you look closely at your tortoise, 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 tortoise is male or female is 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 male tortoise, and the second the claws of a female tortoise.
There are two main reasons why male tortoises have longer claws than females.
The first one is to help the male tortoise 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 tortoises 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 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 that the rightmost plastron and the second one from the left have a concave shape, while the rest are flat. 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.
This is usually a very good way to tell if a tortoise 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 tortoises, more than in wild tortoises.
Small pet tortoises are usually kept together in very tight spaces, and some of them will occasionally mistake the tail of another tortoise for something that they can eat, so they will bite it. And as a result that tortoise will grow up having a smaller tail than it would have otherwise.
This can also happen in the wild, but it happens rarely since tortoises don’t spend that much time near other tortoises, 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 tortoise.
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 tortoise 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 end of the tail.
Turtles use their cloaca, for even more things than tortoises do, like breathing underwater. If you want to know more about the cloaca and what turtles and tortoises use it for 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 tortoise snout, and a female tortoise 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 tortoises 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 Tortoise
In general female tortoises are bigger than male tortoises.
This is not the case for all tortoise species, in some cases the exact opposite is true, but for most common tortoise species this is the case, for example, Russian tortoises, desert tortoises, sulcata tortoises, 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 tortoise, if you don’t you can easily make a wrong assumption.
For example, male Russian tortoises can reach a size of about 8 inches (20 centimeters), while females can reach a size of about 11 inches (28 centimeters). So if you were to measure a young female Russian tortoise 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 tortoises 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 tortoise 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 tortoise le 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 a lot of 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 turtle, which despite its name it’s actually a tortoise, has red 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 tortoises that have brighter shades of red.
Overall turtles and tortoises 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)
The Best Way to Tell if a Tortoise Is Male or Female
Those are the main ways in which you can tell apart a male tortoise from a female tortoise, but which one is the best?
When it comes to tortoises, 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 tortoise right. Even biologists use the same differences that we discussed when they try to determine the gender of a tortoise, 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 is the best time to tell the gender of your tortoise, and what are the big differences between a male and a female tortoise.
The Best Time to Tell the Gender of a Tortoise
As you might have noticed most differences between male and female tortoises have something to do with reproduction, so the best time to try and determine the gender of a tortoise is when it reaches maturity. If you try to do that before, there is a good chance that you will fail.
As for when tortoises 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 tortoises will most likely reach maturity before wild tortoises.
In general, you can expect tortoises to reach maturity somewhere between 3 and 5 years, depending on their diet. For most tortoises 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.
If you want to find out the gender of a baby or juvenile tortoise, 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 male and female tortoises, except for one.
The Main Difference Between a Male and a Female Tortoise
The main difference between a male and a female tortoise is that the female will lay eggs every year, while the males won’t.
Female tortoises will lay eggs every year, even if there is no male around. While the eggs won’t be fertilized and no baby tortoises will come out of them, the process is the same.
Taking care of a female tortoise 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 tortoise is pregnant you can read this article: How to Tell if Your Tortoise Is Pregnant (with Pictures)
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 tortoise 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 tortoises are relatively small, the most useful thing that you could have is another tortoise of a different gender, this way you can have what to compare your tortoise, 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 tortoise 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 tortoise don’t hesitate to leave a comment, or send a mail with some pictures of your tortoise attached.
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