Glad the information could help! G. insculpta is a very rewarding turtle.

As far as sexing goes, maturation may be something you gradually notice or may often be noticed after a hibernation. I have seen turtles on the edge of adulthood go into hibernation and after emergence in the spring, have their puberty hormones kick into full gear and experience a rapid expression of the secondary sex characteristics. Based on the size of your animals they should be getting close, if not only a year or few away, given a regular healthy diet.

Note for concaving in the males plastron and a migration of the cloaca away from the base of the tail coupled with swelling in this same region. These will be the first sex characteristics to express themselves. A mature male will exhibit a larger/wider head, longer/thicker tail, and is often but not always more highly domed and/or elongated. I have also noted minute differences in the eyes of males and female which is hard to descibe without visually comparing two.

Females tails can be quite long as well, but won't attain the length or girth nor experience this cloacal migration from the base. Try not to mistake natural tail size maturation in females for the swelling base found in males. In the wild females are very frequently found with only a nub for a tail due to aggression by males or predator attacks.

In the wild I have never found a female with concavity in the plastron. They may even be slightly convex. There of course may be exceptions though. One exception that may occur due to captivity is that sometimes in captive settings a minor calcium deficiency or rapid growth habit coupled with this can give shell growth results one would not find in wild animals. These abnormalities may cause slight concaving in females who would otherwise have grown normally. This is one reason why a correct and varied diet, UVB lighting, and adequate amounts of calcium are necessary.

One more thing we didn't go over as far as housing. Females can occasionally be aggressive towards one another as well, normally not to the severity of males though. This is just something to note so you can watch out for as well when housing multiple females in the same enclosure. An aggressive female may calm down or may meed to be removed from the group if she doesn't, which like male aggression can lead to stress in the other animals.

Good luck!

-JG

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