I have a friend who lost her Russian a while ago and she asked me to keep any eye out for one, so when I got a call this a.m. from a gal I used to know in the turtle club about a russian she wanted to give away, I asked her to bring it over.
Guys, this is the BIGGEST male russian I've ever seen. I was going to give my friend this tortoise and keep my male, however, after seeing how big he is, I'm tempted to give my friend my male and keep this one. The previous owner bought the tortoise at a pet store 20 years ago when it was about 4" SCL. She thought it was female and has kept it all these years in a pen with her other female. Only recently she has discovered this tortoise mounting the smaller female in the pen, causing the female to start hiding and being pretty stressed.
The tail doesn't seem all that big to me, but the cloaca is more towards the tip of the tail, not close to the body.
I've been trying to raise russians from my 1.3 group for many years and I either never find nests or they're just not getting the job done. I'm thinking with this new male, maybe I will have better luck.
After a short quarantine period I'll be putting the two males together under supervision and let them fight a bit to get the juices flowing, then I'll separate them and put the larger male in with my females.
One thing I'm a little concerned about is the sub species thing. I've been pretty careful to have only the K subspecies and I don't know which sub species this new male is.
