The owners are asking about how old their pet, in cases where it has got them into the hands of random people.To know how to determine the age of the tortoises, need to know the structure of their shell.
Turtles in nature
first get acquainted with the tortoise, because before you wind up in the house is a reptile, you should at least know a little about it.So the tortoise, it is also the Central Asian, she's steppe.Although it is called, and the steppe, but the native habitat of this species are the deserts of Central Asia.
turtles feed on plant food.In winter hibernate.Sexual maturity occurs at about the age of ten.The female lays a few eggs, but not all at once, but at intervals of two days.Newborn turtles have a length of only 30 mm.Interestingly, just born, they immediately burrow into the ground, where winter and spring out at will.
structure turtle
This reptile has four limbs, the front of them - tetradigitate.Carapace round and low, its color may be different shades of yellow-brown or yellow-green, with black or brown spots on each plate.This color allows perfect disguise among the sand and dry grass.
How to determine the age of the land turtle?One way - on the flaps of its shell.It consists of the carapace (dorsal) and plastron (abdominal).Newborn turtle shell is soft, it gradually hardens.Plastron is divided into 16 boards.Carapace has 13 central boards, the sides are still 25 smaller sizes.
on the shield of the carapace has grooves that resemble circles cut wood.Now, did you know how to determine the age of the tortoise?Yes, exactly the same as the age of the tree - the rings.
Determining the age of the turtle two ways
So, the first way of how to determine the age of the land tortoises, - concentric rings.They appear on the label of small turtles in the first year of life.And in the first two years of their growth is very intense, a groove on the shell appears after 3-6 months, and then - 1 or 2 rings per year.How many years old representatives of this species is difficult to find, as the shell becomes smooth and the groove is almost not visible.
to response was more accurate, you can count the rings on 3-5 shields, and then calculate the average.This method does not give a perfect result, because domestic turtles are not a way of life in the natural environment.
great influence on their development have the conditions of detention, and that they sleep in the winter.Pet turtle sooner reach sexual maturity than their relatives living in the wild, and live longer (up to 20, and under favorable conditions, and up to 30 years).
There is another way how to determine the age of the land turtle.To do this, a ruler to measure the length of the carapace.It is known that up to ten years, these reptiles grow fast enough.Upon reaching a length of about 18-20 cm of growth is slowing down and almost unchanged.Although there are instances in nature dimensions of about 30 cm.
newborn turtles have a length of 3 cm, for the year their growth almost doubled (5 cm), and each subsequent year of life adds about 2 cm. Females are significantly larger in size than males.We draw some simple calculations and learn how to determine the age of tortoise: if, for example, the carapace length of 14 cm of the animal, then he is about 6 years old.
Of course, these methods are approximate age determination, but using both, you can at least roughly know how long lives in the light of your pet.
