The male is the larger of the sexes in sulcatas, and this has to do with the courtship behavior. Essentially, females make haste whenever accosted by a sexually aroused male. The male, if he is large enough and fast enough, will overcome the female and use his weight and power to subdue her, after which he will insert his hemipenile projection into her cloaca. This is followed by a series of clucking sounds, at which point copulation is complete. If the male is not large enough, he will generally not be able to successfully mount a mature female (he may be able to mount an immature female, but the point of such being lost should be obvious). Unlike most mediterannean tortoises, sulcatas don't engage in the head nodding rituals and pheremone hypnosis that usually accompanies the courtship of species where the female is the larger of the sexes. Besides this, female sulcatas are already quite large, so the issue of maximizing size to maximize egg production is not quite at issue either.

As for maximum size, typical size of females are in the seventy to seventy five pound range, and males in the 100 to 150 range. I believe the record was a wild male that ranged over two hundred pounds. They get big!

T.G.

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