Information

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Mediterranean Tortoise

Testudo species are inhabitants of plains, deserts, and woodland edges from southern Europe to Pakistan and Morocco to Israel. They are adapted to cool or cold winters, very hot summers, and long periods between rains. This has made them among the hardest tortoises to maintain in captivity because each species tends to have strange requirements. The Egyptian tortoise, for instance is a species of deserts and shrubby desert edges, and it is unable to adapt to humidity higher than 40 or 50%; it is active during the winter in its Libyian Negev, Israel, range, disappearing into cover during the hot summers.

Hermanns tortoise is truly a species of the Mediterranean, occurring along the northern coast from southern France to turkey plus the Balkans and central Mediterranean islands.

Keeping Testudos

If you live in a humid cool climate, the Testudo species probably are not for you. They have trouble adapting to such conditions, and the Egyptian tortoise may never adapt. Young specimens of all the species are especially sensitive to short, cool summers and require very strict winter brumation periods to survive year to year and grow at normal rates. They need large amounts of edible calcium carbonate, perhaps as much as half their body weight in their food on a regular basis. They are not social animals, and some of the species have highly developed hierarchies in which one male (sometimes a female) dominates any other animals and prevents them from feeding, basking, or mating .

If you must try a Mediterranean tortoise, stick with a captive-bred Hermann's (the most adaptable to humidity) or spur-thighed (the most common species) tortoise. The tortoise gets about 3,000 hours of sunlight per year in nature, and it seems to be necessary to duplicate this as closely as possible. This means 10 hours of hot light per day for 300 days,followed by about 60 days of brumation at 39oF (4oC). In actuality, the tortoises prefer day lengths of 12-14 hours per day from April through September, with a gradual reduction of hours through October. The basking temperature should be 95oF (35oC) or so, and a warm basking area should be available around the clock during the active period. To be active, most Mediterranean tortoises must have a cool temperature of over 86oF (30oC), so during the day the air temperature should not be allowed to drop significantly from this level.

If you want to copy any information on these pages please contact

contact@hermann-tortoise.co.uk