Baby Russian Tortoise For Sale

The Baby Russian Tortoise For Sale (Testudo horsfieldii), also commonly known as the Afghan tortoise, the Central Asian tortoise, the four-clawed tortoise, the four-toed tortoise, Horsfield’s tortoise, the Russian steppe tortoise, the Soviet Tortoise, and the steppe tortoise, is a threatened species of tortoise in the family Testudinidae.

The species is endemic to Central Asia from the Caspian Sea south through Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and east across Kazakhstan to Xinjiang, China. Human activities in its native habitat contribute to its threatened status.

Two Russian tortoises were the first Earth inhabitants to travel to and circle the Moon, on Zond 5 in September 1968.

Both the specific name, horsfieldii, and the common name “Horsfield’s tortoise” are in honor of the American naturalist Thomas Horsfield. He worked in Java (1796) and for the East India Company and later became a friend of Sir Thomas Raffies.

This species is traditionally placed in Testudo. Due to distinctly different morphological characteristics, the monotypic genus Agrionemys was proposed for it in 1966, and was accepted for several decades, although not unanimously.^{[5][8][full citation needed]} DNA sequence analysis generally concurred, but not too robustly so.^{[9][full citation needed]} However, in 2021, it was again reclassified in Testudo by the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group and the Reptile Database, with Agrionemys being relegated to a distinct subgenus that T. horsfieldii belonged to.^[5][10] The Turtle Taxonomy Working Group lists five separate subspecies of Russian tortoise, but they are not widely accepted by taxonomists:^[5]

• T. h. bogdanovi Chkhikvadze, 2008 – southern Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
• T. h. horsfieldii (Gray, 1844) – Afghanistan/Pakistan and southern Central Asia
• T. h. kazachstanica Chkhikvadze, 1988 – Kazakhstan/Karakalpakhstan
• T. h. kuznetzovi Chkhikvadze, Ataev, Shammakov & Zatoka, 2009 – northern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan
• T. h. rustamovi Chkhikvadze, Amiranschwili & Atajew, 1990 – southwestern Turkmenistan

The Russian tortoise is a small tortoise species, with a size range of 13–25 cm (5–10 in). Females grow slightly larger (15–25 cm [6–10 in]) to accommodate eggs. Males average 13–20 cm (5–8 in).

Russian tortoise for sale are sexually dimorphic. Males are usually smaller than the females, and the males tend to have longer tails generally tucked to the side, and longer claws; females have a short, fat tail, with shorter claws than the males.

The male has a slit-shaped vent (cloaca) near the tip of its tail; the female has an asterisk-shaped vent (cloaca). Russian tortoises have four toes on their front limbs, unusual compared to other tortoises for having five. Coloration varies, but the shell is usually a ruddy brown or black, fading to yellow between the scutes, and the body is straw-yellow and brown depending on the subspecies.

The male Russian tortoise courts a female through head bobbing, circling, and biting her forelegs. When she submits, he mounts her from behind, making high-pitched squeaking noises during mating.