It may outlive you
A Hermann's tortoise can live for seventy-five years or more. It needs a plan for who will look after it next.
Snakes, shells and frogs · Time every day
Hermann's tortoise
Tortoise · from southern Europe
A small tortoise with a high, domed shell of yellow and black, scaly legs and a horny tip to its tail.
- Size
- 15 to 20cm long
- Lives for
- 50 to 100 years
- Suits
- Families with a sunny, secure garden
Plods after you, steady and determined. Move your pointer and see.
Good to know
Six things about the tortoise
The shell is alive
The shell is part of its skeleton, joined to its backbone and ribs, and it can feel a touch on it.
No teeth
It has a sharp, horny beak in place of teeth.
It eats weeds
Its best food is garden weeds: dandelion, clover and plantain. Fruit and lettuce are bad for it.
It sleeps through winter
In the wild it hibernates for the coldest months.
Faster than you think
On a warm day a tortoise can cover a surprising distance, and climb, and dig.
The real thing
Photos of the tortoise
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
Looking after one
It needs an outdoor pen in summer and a tortoise table indoors, with a basking lamp, ultraviolet light and a diet of weeds and flowers dusted with calcium.
Before you get one
A tortoise is peaceful and full of character. Buy one with the correct legal paperwork, and never from someone who cannot show where it was bred.
Keep going
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