How to tell a Turtle from a Tortoise? And a male from a female?

Question

How can I tell if the turtle\tortoise I just found is a boy or a girl? Also how can I tell if it is a turtle\tortoise?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Tortoises are more domed and they do not have webbed feet. Freshwater turtles, their shells are more streamlined and have webbed feet. See pictures:
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/world_of_turtles/
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/world_of_turtles/index-2.html

To tell the gender of the turtle, you need to look at the tail. Males have a thicker, longer tail, where they store the penis. There are secondary characteristics, depending on the species, gender size, frnot claws, shape of turtle, etc.
Check out the pictures for comparison:
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Info/info.htm

Answer 2

Where are you? You can usually identify turtles by googling "(your state) turtles". Most states have a photo ID list of most of their animals, etc. somewhere on line.

Tortoises only live in a few places, and always have elephant-like clubbed fore-legs.

Male turtles and tortoises, when they are big enough to reproduce, demonstrate in-curved bellys and longer, thinner tails with the vent openings in the middle.

Females have flat or bulging bellies, and short wide tails with the vent near the base.

You can learn more at http://ww.austinsturtlepage.com

Answer 3

Female turtles have shorter front claw and do not have a concave bottom shell. thinner tail

Male turtles have longer front claws and have the arch on the bottom shell..all are used for the mating process. The males tail are thicker at the base of their shell....

Turtles live more in water. Tortoise live more on land!!!

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