So my Lady Gino is now gravid, gaining weight every day, and increasingly restless. It's been a few years since I separated her completely from any unsupervised male contact. It is spring and the weather is fine, so I decided to make some modifications to Little Marge's enclosure. As I couldn't have Little Marge chasing me around as I extended the cinder wall at the south end of her enclosure, I moved her temporarily into Lady Gino's area. The moment I place Little Marge into the enclosure, Lady Gino comes charging up, clearly upset. She resumes to bring herself nose to nose with Little Marge, and I find myself at an impasse. Part of me wants to shield Little Marge from the wrath of Lady Gino, intervene before anything happens. But the part of me that won out wanted to see how far Lady Gino would take this, given that only a few years back, Lady Gino and Little Marge shared an enclosure, and they were never aggressive toward one another (they were, however, housed alongside Big Gino, an incredibly fearsome and highly aggressive male, so I feel that Lady Gino's aggressive tendencies were curtailed when these three lived together).
So, Lady Gino clearly wins the intimidation ritual, and she begins sniffing Little Marge, rubbing her front legs against Marge's shell, sniffing at her legs. Ultimately, she then asserts her dominance by mounting Little Marge, at which point Little Marge began to run as Lady Gino gave chase.
At this point, I removed Little Marge to a bus tub warm water bath and worked as quickly as I could to extend her cinder block fence line. After about thirty minutes, I completed the work and put Little Marge back into her paddock.
By then, I was, of course, curious as to how Lady Gino would react to a different tortoise, so I grabbed Big Gino and put him in the pen. Lady Gino's initial reaction was the same. She charged up, obviously upset, only this time she goes nose to nose with Gino and, after only five seconds of intimidation ritual, she resumes to lock gulars with Big Gino and viciously bite at his front legs. I pull the two of them apart, check each for injuries, and see Gino back to his enclosure. Hilariously enough, he goes right back to grazing on rose mallow as he had been doing before I took him from his enclosure. This time of year, that big boy doesn't miss a beat, I swear.
So I was curious. Has anyone else had experience with differences in gender aggression? Can any general statements concerning aggression be made regarding either sex, or is aggression among all Testudo merely a given, variable only according to the individual? Does separation increase the intensity of aggression?
I've always been a proponent of single tortoise housing. It is one of the reasons that I have over a thousand cinderblocks on my property. I still breed Lady Gino and her counterpart, Little Gino, but whenever I do, I only put them together for hour long intervals during which I watch them from a distance to ensure that the violence doesn't get out of hand. Even so, Little Gino has chipped and removed scales from Lady Gino's front legs. He once bit her on the chin so badly as to draw blood, which I treated following the mating session with antibiotic cream. But this isn't a one way street. She fights back. One time I had to separate them after she tried to bite Little Gino's unsheathed hemipenis. Whenever he moves to bite her face, she usually lunges forward to strike him with her gular. There are times that I'm uncertain who would be the dominant animal, given how nasty she can be in response to his courtly overtures.
I love Mediterranean torts. Their tenacity and pugnacious nature make them all the more interesting, as far as I'm concerned.
T.G.
So, Lady Gino clearly wins the intimidation ritual, and she begins sniffing Little Marge, rubbing her front legs against Marge's shell, sniffing at her legs. Ultimately, she then asserts her dominance by mounting Little Marge, at which point Little Marge began to run as Lady Gino gave chase.
At this point, I removed Little Marge to a bus tub warm water bath and worked as quickly as I could to extend her cinder block fence line. After about thirty minutes, I completed the work and put Little Marge back into her paddock.
By then, I was, of course, curious as to how Lady Gino would react to a different tortoise, so I grabbed Big Gino and put him in the pen. Lady Gino's initial reaction was the same. She charged up, obviously upset, only this time she goes nose to nose with Gino and, after only five seconds of intimidation ritual, she resumes to lock gulars with Big Gino and viciously bite at his front legs. I pull the two of them apart, check each for injuries, and see Gino back to his enclosure. Hilariously enough, he goes right back to grazing on rose mallow as he had been doing before I took him from his enclosure. This time of year, that big boy doesn't miss a beat, I swear.
So I was curious. Has anyone else had experience with differences in gender aggression? Can any general statements concerning aggression be made regarding either sex, or is aggression among all Testudo merely a given, variable only according to the individual? Does separation increase the intensity of aggression?
I've always been a proponent of single tortoise housing. It is one of the reasons that I have over a thousand cinderblocks on my property. I still breed Lady Gino and her counterpart, Little Gino, but whenever I do, I only put them together for hour long intervals during which I watch them from a distance to ensure that the violence doesn't get out of hand. Even so, Little Gino has chipped and removed scales from Lady Gino's front legs. He once bit her on the chin so badly as to draw blood, which I treated following the mating session with antibiotic cream. But this isn't a one way street. She fights back. One time I had to separate them after she tried to bite Little Gino's unsheathed hemipenis. Whenever he moves to bite her face, she usually lunges forward to strike him with her gular. There are times that I'm uncertain who would be the dominant animal, given how nasty she can be in response to his courtly overtures.
I love Mediterranean torts. Their tenacity and pugnacious nature make them all the more interesting, as far as I'm concerned.
T.G.