This statement from you describes the point I was making in this thread. Assuming that it is definitely a male, one would ask the following questions: Did you incubate the male tortoise yourself and what temp was used? If not, do you know the breeder of your tortoise quite well? Do you believe it was really incubated at a high temperature? And if so, do you think the breeder knows what temp to use to produce females in Hermann's Tortoises? Did any others from that same incubation turn out to be females?

I would ask these things because in my experience, tortoises incubated at the higher limits of the temps which produce females are more likely to have extra or split scutes, resulting in a higher than normal number of scutes rather than the too few scutes that you mentioned. The case you are describing (if I understand it correctly) indicates that two of the scutes are fused together into one larger one rather than an extra one forming, or a normal scute splitting into two smaller triangular ones, or even a small additional scute appearing where there would normally be a seam.

Without knowing what temperature was actually used for the incubation, I would say it was too low to produce females (or extra scutes) and/or TSD doesn't work well in Hermann's Tortoises.

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