All About HERMANN’S TORTOISES!

without a doubt Herman's tortoises are some of the most popular tortoise species on the planet but a lot of people don't realize there is more than one there's actually three different types so come along with me because I'm going to show you how to without a doubt properly identify the three different types of Herman's tortoise starting with the Western right here right now [Music] [Music] this right here is testudo hermana hermani the Western Herman's tortoise now on average this is going to be the smallest of the three types of Hermits it's also going to be the most colorful and in fact they have one of the highest contrasted carapaces in the turtle and tortoise world because they're only two colors gold and black the gold could be a different Hue from anywhere between lemon yellow all the way up to almost an orange but you're what you're looking at right here is a very typical looking pure specimen now along with that contrast on the carapace are some pretty well defined markings primarily this one right here doesn't that look like a keyhole or a mushroom cloud explosion well that is one of the most indicative traits of the western Herman's tortoise and every single specimen will have some version of that but only on the fifth vertebral scoot just below it is the super caudal Shield see right there that protects the tail that is going to always be divided while we're on the top part of of the animal let's take a look at its head just underneath and behind each eye you will notice a small or sometimes large yellow spot we call that the sub ocular cheek spot it's always yellow sometimes it's more intense than others obviously older animals it may lose its intensity but that is another indicative trait of the species while on the subject of the head though they have a sharper almost at times lizard or snake-like looking head with regular Contours when we look at the bottom of the tortoise this is probably the most indicative trait of all the two longitudinal jet black bands that run along the midline parallel to each other on the plastering they start from the humeral scoots and go all the way down to the anal scoots and sometimes there's a smudge or two on the inner or outer sides of the ghouler scoots which are right here but there's one other point to bring up while on the plastering this right here this scene between these two scoots that's the pectoral scoot scene this right here is the femoral scoot scene in a Pure Western hermann's tortoise the femoral scoot seam is always going to be longer than that of the pectoral but you'll find that it's reversed in the other hermann's tortoises the Western Hermes tortoise also has an interesting trait that's found in an area you might not think to look and that's right here this is called the inguinal scoot that small triangle that's right at the bridge where the carapace and the plaster meet in front of each leg some people call it the thigh area regardless a true Western Herman's tortoise is going to have both of those one on each side the Western hermit's tortoise overall has contrast all throughout it even its skin is often a beautiful yellow and the nails depending on the locality can be a bright yellow clear or even black at times overall the Western Hermits tortoise is a much smaller compact animal full of beauty as far as color and contrast goes and they do differ greatly from the other hermann's tortoises so let's go take a look at them now the next term is tortoise might be much more familiar to you guys because it is actually one of the most popular pets in the world of reptiles in general this is the Eastern Herman's tortoise [Music] thank you testudo hermani boat garage this is the Eastern Herman's tortoise and right off the bat you should notice some obvious differences between this animal and the Western Hermes that we just showed you for one the Eastern hermans is considerably larger every tortoise that I'm showing you in this video is a fully grown adult so you can really get a gauge for that actual adult size you might also notice the color now I know a lot of these tortoises are not wedded down and they're a little bit Dusty for moving around in their enclosure but you should be able to get a pretty general idea here you'll notice there's less intensity to the carapace of this animal a little bit less black on average more frayed markings and you'll even see that the yellow background color or ground color is more of an okra Olive or even straw color instead of that really deep golden or lemon yellow or even orange that we will see on the western hermit's tortoise the carapace overall is a little bit flatter and broader wider whereas the Western Herman's tortoise comes up a little bit more of an arc or a pitch when we look at the fifth vertebral scoot on the Eastern Herman's tortoise you see see how it lacks that really nice Keyhole or mushroom cloud explosion marking that's a Telltale trait that it's an Eastern Herman's tortoise because there's no real definition to the marking on that fifth vertebral scoot when it comes to the supercal shield it might be divided it might not be divided when we look at the head of the Eastern Herman's tortoise you'll notice a bit of a blunter snout and an overall robust or brawnier looking head and they will lack that really definitive sub-ocular cheek spot that you see on the western hermans just below and behind each eye let's look at the plaster on the Eastern Hermits tortoise right off the bat you'll notice that they lack those two parallel jet black bands that you see on the western Herman's tortoise in this subspecies they're going to be broken up with no real continuity to them last but not least on the plastering here the seams of the pectoral scoots and the femoral scoots are reversed in the Eastern hermann's tortoise the pectoral scoot seam is going to be longer than that of the femoral scoot scene and that is the Eastern Hermits toward us now let's go take a look at yet another Hermes tortoise oh foreign with markings that are more conspicuous than the Eastern Herman's tortoise but not quite there yet as far as the Western Herman's tortoise goes this right here is your middle ground this is the dalmatian tortoise testudo hermani herzegovanensis now I say hercycle venensis because unfortunately taxonomists have demoted this unique little tortoise to being considered just a geographical variant of the common eastern hermann's tortoise when in fact anybody that keeps these or has seen them in the flesh even in the wild will say they are very unique and probably more worthy of being elevated back up to at least subspecies level but that's a talk for another day nonetheless we treat this animal as a valid subspecies and they get their own pen because we would never breed them to westerns or Eastern Herman's tortoises these guys are small not usually as small as the Western hermans but considerably smaller than the big Eastern hermann's tortoise and if you notice it's also pretty round doesn't have as high of an arc on the shell as the Western Herman's well but it's also not as flat as the Eastern Herman's tortoise these animals develop a nice yellow but it actually does turn to an olive with age they have Bolder markings and when it comes to the fifth verbal scoot on the carapace they sometimes have a marking that's reminiscent of a keyhole but on average they do not and even when they do it is nowhere near as defined as what you see in the western Herman's tortoise that super caudal Shield as you can see on this animal is not divided which does make it pure but if it was divided it would also be considered pure now let's move this animal over to the front and take a look at its cute little face and I say cute because I consider the dalmatian tortoise to have a really cute little blunt snout it's almost like the face just kind of stops it doesn't really come to any kind of Point as you see in the western Herman's tortoise and it's nowhere near as brawny looking as what we see in the Eastern Herman's tortoise on the top of the head there are two distinct markings at the back and it looks almost like the top of a heart and those are often a very fluorescent green sometimes they're a little bit more yellow and you can see this or at least a version of it on other Herman's tortoises but it's really distinct in the dalmatian one of their Telltale traits in my opinion as far as the sub ocular patch goes sometimes they have something reminiscent of it but all of these will turn very dark with age as far as the facial features go and the eyes are considerably larger the scan again matches the shell just like we see in eastern Herman's tortoises on the plastron is where the dalmatian tortoise really features some interesting traits that set it apart from others when you look here as I showed you in the other tortoises the inguinal scoots are actually missing this is where it does get a little bit confusing though Dalmatian tortoises typically will lack both of them some animals only lack one and then even fewer animals but there are some do have inguinal scoots on both sides but when they do have them they're usually shorter and more of a wide try angle whereas in the other two Herman's tortoises they're much longer and they almost wrap all the way up now as far as the bands on the plastering go they're a little bit more continuous in the dalmatian tortoise than in the Eastern Herman's tortoise but of course they do not compare to the solidity that's seen on the western Hermes tortoise last but not least let's take a look at these two scoot seams here in the dalmatian it doesn't matter if the pectoral is longer than the femoral or vice versa and often they're very close in length the big deal is this seam right here this is called the humeral scoot scene and what happens is it dips down in a very distinct sharp U not so much a V and not a squiggly line but a very sharp U and I've yet to see a very pure Dalmatian tortoise that doesn't have that it can be found on the western Hermits but usually you don't see it on the eastern and that is your basic gist when it comes to the wonderful little Dalmatian tortoise [Music] so I would imagine that some of you are probably confused by the information I've fed you over the last three tortoises here and that's okay because when I first started out I didn't know what I was reading or watching and it was all so confusing to me I mean they're all Herman's tortoises right well yeah but it is worthy to note that they are in fact different enough to where they should never be kept together these animals particularly the Western Hermes tortoise is threatened by things not just the typical things that threaten Turtles and tortoises in the wild but also impurity this animal is being accidentally or sometimes even purposely mixed with these two which are much more common animals this is an endangered tortoise right here the Western Hermes tortoise is one of the most endangered tortoises or reptiles of Western Europe so it's important for it to stay pure people let these go in nature and then they end up mixing with Native uh hermann's tortoises that live in France Spain and Italy which mean they are Western and also in captivity people do one of two things they don't realize what they have and they mix them together or because the West Herman's tortoise is rare and fetches a high price typically people will create hybrids just to make a quick Buck now hybrids are not as easy to detect as the pure examples of these animals and we'll save that for another video where I can really show you guys what to look for in hybrid tortoises but point of this video is to clear up the confusion between these three wonderful examples of a hermit's tortoise and what better way to do that than to compare the three side by side all right so let's compare the Western Herman's tortoise to the Eastern Herman's tortoise remember this one rare this one pretty common right off the bat more contrast on the western a deeper golden yellow whereas the Eastern Herman's tortoise is going to have more of a straw collar to the shell and more frayed markings and when we turn them to the back I know you guys can see that on that fifth vertebral scoot the Western Herman's tortoise has that beautiful distinct Keyhole marking where the Eastern does not if I can get them to cooperate here we can get a close look at their heads the Western Herman's tortoise has those regular Contours a little bit more of a sharper Point think more lizard-like and it also has the sub ocular spot just below and behind each eye whereas the Eastern hermans has a blunter more robust head bigger eyes and does not have that distinct cheek spot looking at the plastering it should really be coming clear to you guys now look at those two beautiful jet black unbroken bands on the western Herman's tortoise whereas the Eastern Herman's tortoise over here does not have that kind of continuous striping on either side very distinct and last but not least the femoral scoot seam on the plastering of the western Herman's tortoise is wider than that of the pectoral and that is clearly reversed in the Eastern Herman's tortoise now let's bring the dalmatian back into the mix here similar in size right but yet the Western is still a bit smaller and again these are all adult animals these happen to be egg laying females so there's not going to be any other difference in size here when we look at the markings of the carapace you can see the dalmatian does have more definition and contrast to it than the Eastern typically does but it is no match for what's going on on the western Herman's tortoise and when we turn them around and look at the back once again the Western has that Keyhole symbol whereas the dalmatian does not looking at the heads clear differences nice cute blunt snout on the dalmatian the Western has that pointier snout and also the defined sub-ocular cheek spot and on the top of the head the dalmatian has those two green markings that look like the top of the heart whereas the Western is most likely going to be lacking them and let's compare Eastern to Dalmatian which you can see there are a lot more similarities between these two in some regard it's no surprise that taxonomists would demote this to a geographical variant of the Eastern they are pretty close but there are definitely obvious differences look at the shape alone and the markings the dalmatian is pretty round whereas the Eastern Herman's tortoise is very elongated more oval and in sometimes very trapezoidal last but not least I just want to show you guys a close-up of the plastering of all three animals and I don't want to keep them upside down for long but it is very important that you guys know what to look for on the plastering because that is where things really become Telltale Western hermit's tortoise unbroken jet black bands femoral scoots seem larger than the pectoral Dalmatian has some continuity but not as much as the Western Herman's tortoise and it has a really sharp U on the humeral scoot scene the Eastern Herman's tortoise has even less definition to these black bands on the plastering it has more of a v here and the pectoral scoot scene is clearly larger than that of the femoral so there are your Plastering things but don't forget about the inguinal scoots you'll see the dalmatian is lacking both whereas the eastern and the Western both have them being a member of the famous European genus of tortoises known as testudo Herman's tortoises are of course subject to extreme variation so before I go I do have to warn you that every single little detail that I explained to you in this video about Herman's tortoises is subject to variation and that's because nature is always going to throw us for a loop take Athena right here the giant Eastern Urban's tortoise if you recall back a couple videos I told you her story and how she is the largest known example of an Eastern Urban's tortoise in the United States measuring 11.2 inches whereas most eastern Herman's tortoises tend to top out between seven and eight inches so take all of that into consideration and also that when it comes to the babies of Herman's tortoises things are even harder when it comes to telling them apart we could do a video for you guys so let me know in the comments if you'd like to see that and I'd also like to know what other tortoises you'd like to see me compare maybe we'll do a Greek tortoise video which would be pretty nuts if you you're looking to have your head explode nonetheless if you enjoyed this video make sure you check out this video right here [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Garden State Tortoise

Views: 61,890

Keywords: Hermann’s tortoise, Testudo hermanni, pet tortoise care tips, garden state tortoise, tortoise breeds, best pet tortoise breed, best pet tortoise species, Otis the turtle, best tortoise care info, testudo tortoises, cute tortoise, tort care, Chris Leone, tortoise facts, tortoise education, reptile education, turtle care tips, turtle care infos, best pet turtle care tips

Id: -Kxa3MxdxaA

Length: 15min 59sec (959 seconds)

Published: Sun May 07 2023