- If you keep tortoise as a pet, it’s nice to know if you’ve got boys or girls. However unlike other mammals tortoise doesn’t have external genitalia this make difficult to determine the sex of tortoise, but it is not impossible, after examine below 5 things you can tell is your tortoise is male or female.
1. Look at the size of Tail
- Male have a longer tail than female for that you should have a both female and male tortoise so you can do better comparison.
2. Examine the Shape of plastron
- Plastron is the ventral surface of the shell what one would call belly or stomach.
- To check the plastron pick up the tortoise and gently turn the over so you can see the underside
- In male tortoise plastron is concave in shape and in female plastron is flat.
- This characteristic shapes have a utility when to tortoise mate, concave shape plastron in male prevent it from slipping from top of the female during mating , and flat shape plastron in female provide extra interior space in which eggs grow.
3. Examine the Tail Notch
- Look at the underside of your tortoise below the tail, females generally have U shaped notches and Male have a V shape tail notch in which tail is accommodate properly during mating time and prevent tail to crushing underneath.
4. Determine the size of front Claws
- Male tortoise have a longer front claws than female , male tortoise use their claw to fight and, claim to defend their territory and also use during mating time.
5. Examine the Cloaca
- Female and male both have a external opening / vent underside the tail called cloaca , In female this opening is more rounded and star shape than male and cloaca located much closer to body, whereas in male cloaca is oval in shape and located in posterior third of tail.
- Make sure that the tortoise is fully mature. If the tortoise is not mature, we won’t be able to accurately determine the sex of the tortoise, generally tortoise become mature at 10 – 20 year of age.
