Tell the exact age of the tortoise should you former owners or breeder, but not always with this case everything is solved so simply. Sometimes the future owner of a reptile has to deal with a dishonest seller or simply an unskilled person who has the main thing to shove the goods, without going into details. If you have a tiny creature, you can imagine about when it came into being. But when it is already an adult creature, it is quite difficult to determine the age of turtles for a beginner. But there are simple methods that will help you make even approximate calculations, even if you previously did not deal with these wonderful creatures.
How to know the age of a land tortoise?
- Determine the age of the turtle on the shell. It turns out that the usual ruler can help in our interesting calculations. We measure the distance between the extreme points of the shell and compare the result with the following table:
- newborn turtle - armor length about 3 cm;
- age to 1 year - 5 cm;
- about 2 years - 6 cm;
- three years - 8 cm;
- four years - 10 cm;
- five years - 12 cm;
- 6 years - 14 cm.
Over time, in captivity, turtles reach a length of up to 18 cm, and in the wild, the shell of a land reptile even sometimes exceeds a size of 30 cm.
In the case, how to determine the age of the land tortoise, there are many nuances that strongly influence the calculations. Why does this table give only approximate results? Much is being decided by the feed and other conditions of keeping your pet. Therefore, even measurements of the length of the shell give only approximate data.