Greek Tortoises: Reproduction

The Greek tortoise hibernates and estivates, but it is when waking up of the hibernation when its mating rite begins. The courtship of the male consists of hitting or biting the back of the female, climbing on her to copulate. They are oviparous specimens, laying between three and four eggs during the months of May to July - the number of eggs depends on the specimen. The females do not reach sexual maturity until they are ten years old, so it is always a joy to find female adult specimens of them on our farm.

After carrying out the census of Testudo Graeca Graeca in our plantation, and considering that the found specimens were somewhat distant from each other, an inevitable doubt arose among us: so how do they find each other? Our expert explained us that the encounters between males and females were authentic "miracles" indeed, but also tell us about some interesting resources they have to ensure its reproduction and survival. Females have an organ in the oviduct called "sperm-storage", where they can store sperm even four years after copulation, allowing several stakes of different males, which favours the genetic variability of the species.

Here we have a video of two Greek Tortoises mating, filmed on our farm on an ordinary day.:

We arrived to the final straight of our monograph on the Greek tortoise. In the last entry we will make a summary of some the actions we do from ATALAYA BIO to ensure its conservation, stay tuned!

• #01 – Greek tortoises: What is a Greek tortoise?
• # 02 – Greek tortoises: Vulnerable species (VU - IUCN)
• # 03 – Greek tortoises: Testudo Project
• # 04 – Greek tortoises: How to identify males and females?
• # 05 – Greek tortoises: Reproduction
• # 06 – Greek tortoises: A responsible farming