Animal
Hermann's tortoise
Hermann's tortoise is a land tortoise from southern Europe. Its shell is yellow and black. It sleeps through the winter!
Hermann's tortoise lives in sunny, stony hills and open woods around the Mediterranean in southern Europe. Its high shell is yellow and black and usually about 13 to 18 centimeters long. It eats leaves, flowers and fruits, and it spends the winter hibernating. It is listed as vulnerable.
Testudo hermanni (family Testudinidae) is a medium-sized tortoise native only to Mediterranean and sub-Mediterranean Europe, from northeastern Spain to European Türkiye, with a western subspecies (T. h. hermanni) and an eastern one (T. h. boettgeri). Luiselli assessed it as Vulnerable (A2acde+4acde) for the IUCN Red List (assessed 5 May 2024, published 2024), because long-term studies show local declines, generally of about 30% over ten years.
Photo: Orchi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet Hermann's tortoise
Hermann's tortoise is a tortoise from Europe.
Its shell is yellow and black.
Its shell is about as long as a grown-up's hand.
Hermann's tortoise is a land tortoise that lives only in southern Europe. Its high shell is yellow and black, and an adult's shell is usually about 13 to 18 centimeters long. Females are on average about 12% bigger than males.
There are two subspecies. The western one lives from Spain to Italy, and the eastern one lives from northeastern Italy across the Balkans. Tortoises in the east are generally bigger than those in the west.
Testudo hermanni belongs to the tortoise family, Testudinidae. The 2011 species account by Bertolero, Cheylan, Hailey, Livoreil and Willemsen (Chelonian Research Monographs) describes a medium-sized tortoise with an average carapace length of about 130 to 180 millimeters. Western populations (Spain, France, Italy) average 150 to 179 millimeters in females and 130 to 149 millimeters in males; eastern ones in the Balkans average more than 180 millimeters in females and more than 155 millimeters in males. The largest known specimen, from Bulgaria, measured 346 millimeters.
Two subspecies are recognized, T. h. hermanni in the west and T. h. boettgeri in the east, with the border near the Po River in northeastern Italy; genetic studies confirm the split. The IUCN calls the species a European endemic.
Quick facts
- Group
- Reptile
- Length
- 0.13 to 0.18 m
- Lifespan in the wild
- 85 years
Sunny hills around the Mediterranean
Hermann's tortoises live in sunny places with stones and low bushes.
Some live in open woods and fields too.
Hermann's tortoises live around the Mediterranean Sea: in patches of northeastern Spain and southeastern France, on Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, in coastal and hilly parts of Italy, and more widely across the Balkans from Croatia to Greece and the European part of Türkiye, including Serbia, Bulgaria and small parts of Romania.
Their typical home is stony, sunny hillsides with low, sparse plants and grass. They also live in open oak woods, low scrub, coastal dunes, pastures and traditional olive groves and orchards. Most live below 500 meters.
The IUCN describes a wide but scattered range in Mediterranean Europe, from coastal northeastern Spain (where it is native to the Albères Mountains of northern Catalonia) through southeastern France, peninsular Italy and the Balkans to European Türkiye, plus Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Greek islands, from sea level to 1,300 meters. The 2011 species account notes that most populations live below 500 meters and that the typical habitat is semi-open, stony, sun-drenched hills with low, sparse vegetation and grass; it also uses coastal dunes, pastures, terraced orchards, scrub and open evergreen-oak or pine forest, and avoids marshes, dense forests, intensive farmland and steep stony hills.
The IUCN text describes the tortoises of Mallorca and Menorca as older introductions (its country list files the Balearic Islands under native range); the species account says they were introduced by the islands' first inhabitants perhaps 3,000 years ago (Mayol 1985).
Continent
Its habitats
Where can you find this animal?
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Countries where the IUCN lists Hermann's tortoises as resident. They live only in Mediterranean parts of many countries shown: in Spain on the mainland only in the far northeast, in France in the southeast and on Corsica, in Romania only in small areas in the southwest and southeast, and in Türkiye only in its European part. On Mallorca and Menorca they come from introductions long ago, and on Cre
Places: Albania, Bosnia & Herz., Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Montenegro and 5 more places.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in France, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Albania, Montenegro and 24 more places.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
A big menu of plants
Hermann's tortoises eat plants.
They munch leaves, flowers and fruits.
Hermann's tortoises eat mostly plants: leaves, flowers and fruits. Scientists studying them have recorded 134 kinds of plants in their diet. They like plants of the daisy family and the pea family, and fruits such as figs, mulberries and grapes.
They usually leave strong-smelling plants such as thyme, lavender and rosemary alone. Now and then they also eat snails, small creatures such as beetles, or the remains of dead animals.
The IUCN describes the species as predominantly vegetarian, eating the leaves, flowers and fruits of many plant species, and occasionally eating carcasses of vertebrates. The 2011 species account lists 134 plant species from 46 families identified across diet studies, with a preference for Asteraceae and Fabaceae, to a lesser extent Ranunculaceae, and occasionally Poaceae; most plants eaten are annuals. Woody, aromatic (Thymus, Lavandula, Rosmarinus, Myrtus, Cistus), resinous, milky or hairy-leaved plants are generally rejected. Fruits (Ficus carica, Morus, Opuntia, grapes, Arbutus unedo), mushrooms, snails and other invertebrates are also taken.
Did you know?
Female tortoises like males with high calls.
During courtship, males call, and females prefer males whose calls are high-pitched, fast and short.
Females prefer males giving high-pitched calls at a high rate and of short duration (Galeotti et al. 2005, in Bertolero et al. 2011).
Shell, scales and a tail claw
Its shell has yellow and black patches.
Its front legs are covered in big scales.
Its tail has a hard tip like a claw.
A Hermann's tortoise has a high shell. Its plates show growth rings, but on very old tortoises they can wear smooth. The bottom shell usually has two wide black stripes.
The front of each front leg is covered with large scales. At the tip of the tail there is a hard, claw-like scale, which few other tortoises have. Males have a longer, thicker tail and a slightly hollow bottom shell; females have a flat bottom shell and a more oval top shell.
The 2011 species account gives these diagnostic characters: supracaudal scute almost always divided, a narrow vertebral scute, a horny claw-like scale at the tail tip (more developed in males), no real corneous tubercles on the inner thigh, and large scales on the front of the foreleg in at least five transverse rows. The plastron is rigid, with two large black stripes separated by a lighter median line, flat in females and slightly concave in males. Growth rings are well marked except in old specimens. Males' tails measure about 26% of carapace length against 14% in females, and sexual dimorphism appears at a carapace length of about 10 centimeters (6 to 7 years of age).
Eggs in early summer, babies in autumn
The mother lays a few eggs in a nest.
The babies are about 3 centimeters long.
They take many years to grow up.
Hermann's tortoises mate in spring and again in summer. From mid-May to early July, a female lays one or more clutches of a few white, hard-shelled eggs in a nest. The warmth of the nest decides whether the babies will be males or females.
The babies come out of the nest from late August to October, only about 3 centimeters long. They grow slowly and are ready to breed at about 9 to 12 years old.
The IUCN gives mating in April or May and again in July, one or more clutches of 2 to 6 eggs per year laid from mid-May to early July, a hatchling size of about 33 millimeters, mean annual neonate survival of only 30% (Arsovski et al. 2018b), and maturity at about 9 to 12 years (Stubbs 1989), occasionally from 7 years in females and 8 in males. The 2011 species account gives clutch sizes of 1 to 7 eggs in the western subspecies and 1 to 9 in the eastern one (means 3.3 and 4.3), up to three clutches a year, incubation of 90 to 124 days in the wild, and emergence from late August to October. Sex is temperature-dependent: eastern-subspecies eggs incubated at 25 to 30 °C gave all males and at 33 to 34 °C all females (Pieau 2002). The IUCN cites a longevity of about 85 years (Reinke et al. 2022).
Sunbathing, sleeping and finding home
Hermann's tortoises like to sit in the sun.
They sleep all winter.
They can often find their way home by smell!
In the morning, Hermann's tortoises bask in the sun to warm up. In crowded places many bask together, sometimes climbing on top of each other up to three high. In hot summers they are active mostly early in the morning and in the evening.
They hibernate from late autumn until February, March or April, depending on where they live. A tortoise moved a short distance from its home area can often walk straight back, using its sense of smell. Males often fight by biting and bumping shells.
The IUCN gives above-ground activity from March to October, much reduced in summer (almost an aestivation phase) or limited to twilight and early morning. The 2011 species account describes morning basking from a body temperature of about 20 °C, a thermal preference of 25 to 30 °C, communal basking up to three layers deep with no aggression (Willemsen), and hibernation from late October or November to February in Greece, the Ebro Delta and Provence.
Home ranges are generally one or two hectares, about half as large in males. Displaced tortoises return home along remarkably straight paths, and homing depends on smell (Chelazzi and colleagues). Fighting between males, by biting limbs and head and bumping carapaces, is common and can end with one tipped on its back.
Did you know?
Its tail has a hard tip like a little claw.
Hermann's tortoise is one of the few tortoises with a hard, claw-like scale at the tip of its tail.
A horny claw-like terminal tail scale, more developed in males, distinguishes it from most other tortoises (Bertolero et al. 2011).
Vulnerable
Hermann's tortoises are in danger.
Fires, roads and building on their land are problems for them.
Laws protect them in many countries.
Hermann's tortoise is listed as vulnerable. Long-term studies in some places found populations shrinking, generally by about 30% in ten years. Its habitat is being lost to towns, holiday buildings and changes in farming. Wildfires, roads, farm chemicals, predators such as wild boar, and collection for the pet trade are also threats.
Pet tortoises let go in the wild can mix with wild ones and carry diseases. The species is protected by international trade rules and by laws in many countries, and France, Spain and Italy have programs to help it.
Luiselli assessed Testudo hermanni as Vulnerable (A2acde+4acde) for the IUCN Red List (Global and Europe scope; assessed 5 May 2024, published 2024, errata version 2025), with a decreasing trend: local declines generally of about 30% over ten years (e.g. central Italy), suspected to be more general. It was previously assessed globally as Near Threatened (van Dijk et al. 2004). Threats include habitat loss to urbanization and tourist development, agricultural expansion and intensification, agrochemicals, wildfires, collection for the pet trade, genetic pollution, road mortality, predators (including subsidized ones) and disease carried by released pet tortoises. After wildfires, populations on Corsica and in the Plaine des Maures took more than 50 years to recover to pre-fire densities (Couturier et al. 2014).
The species is listed in CITES Appendix II, Annex A of the EU Wildlife Trade Regulation, the Bern Convention and the EU Habitats Directive (Annexes II and IV); 654 Natura 2000 sites mention it (EEA 2022). France runs a National Action Plan (2017 to 2026), and the IUCN calls head-starting a promising way to rebuild populations.
IUCN Red List
How is the hermann's tortoise doing in the wild?
- Least Concern
- Near Threatened
- Vulnerable (this animal)
- Endangered
- Critically Endangered
- Extinct in the Wild
- Extinct
Vulnerable
At high risk of disappearing from the wild.
Amazing facts
-
Hermann's tortoises sometimes sunbathe in piles, one on top of another!
Where there are many tortoises, they may bask together, sometimes climbing on top of each other three high.
Communal basking at special sites, often in up to three layers, with no aggression seen (Willemsen, in Bertolero et al. 2011).
-
Its tail has a hard tip like a little claw.
Hermann's tortoise is one of the few tortoises with a hard, claw-like scale at the tip of its tail.
A horny claw-like terminal tail scale, more developed in males, distinguishes it from most other tortoises (Bertolero et al. 2011).
-
A tortoise taken away from home can find its way back by smell.
Tortoises moved a short distance from their home area walk back along surprisingly straight paths, using their sense of smell.
Homing over 0.4 to 1.6 km is olfactory: it works in thick vegetation and after transport in opaque containers (Chelazzi and colleagues, in Bertolero et al. 2011).
-
Female tortoises like males with high calls.
During courtship, males call, and females prefer males whose calls are high-pitched, fast and short.
Females prefer males giving high-pitched calls at a high rate and of short duration (Galeotti et al. 2005, in Bertolero et al. 2011).
Words to know
- carapace
- the top part of a turtle's or tortoise's shell
- plastron
- the bottom part of a turtle's or tortoise's shell
- hibernate
- to spend the winter in a deep, inactive rest
- clutch
- a group of eggs laid at one time
- subspecies
- a group within a species that lives in its own area and looks a little different
- vulnerable
- at high risk of dying out in the wild
Discovery challenge
-
What colors is Hermann's tortoise's shell?
What colors is the shell of a Hermann's tortoise?
What is the usual coloring of Testudo hermanni's carapace?
- Yellow and black
- Bright blue
- Red and white
Show the answer
Yellow and black
Yellow and black!
Its high shell is yellow and black.
Yellow and black, sometimes uniformly yellow or greenish yellow in Greece or on some islands (Bertolero et al. 2011).
-
What does Hermann's tortoise do in winter?
What do Hermann's tortoises do during the winter?
How do Hermann's tortoises pass the cold season?
- They hibernate
- They fly south
- They swim in the sea
Show the answer
They hibernate
They sleep all winter!
They hibernate from late autumn until about February or March.
Hibernation from late October or November to February in Greece, the Ebro Delta and Provence (Bertolero et al. 2011).
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What does Hermann's tortoise eat?
What does a Hermann's tortoise mostly eat?
How does the IUCN describe the diet of Testudo hermanni?
- Plants
- Fish
- Only insects
Show the answer
Plants
Plants!
Leaves, flowers and fruits of many kinds of plants.
Predominantly vegetarian: leaves, flowers and fruits of many plant species (IUCN).
-
Where does Hermann's tortoise live?
In which part of the world do Hermann's tortoises live in the wild?
To which region is Testudo hermanni native?
- Southern Europe
- South America
- Antarctica
Show the answer
Southern Europe
Southern Europe!
Around the Mediterranean Sea, from northeastern Spain to the European part of Türkiye.
A European endemic of Mediterranean and sub-Mediterranean regions (IUCN).
Places where you might see it
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Watch
Country
Greece
Greece is a country in southern Europe, at the bottom of the Balkan Peninsula, with sea on three sides and more than 2,000 islands. Most of it is mountains. About 10.4 million people lived there at the start of 2025, and its capital is Athens, a city with ruins more than 2,400 years old.
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Watch
Country
Italy
Italy is a country in southern Europe on a long peninsula that reaches into the Mediterranean Sea, often described as shaped like a boot. The Alps rise in the north, the Apennine mountains run down its length, and about 58.9 million people (2026) live there. Its capital is Rome.
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Watch
Country
Croatia
Croatia is a crescent-shaped country in southeastern Europe. Its long coast on the Adriatic Sea is fringed by more than 1,100 islands, limestone mountains rise behind it, fertile plains lie in the north, and about 3.87 million people lived there in mid-2025.
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Italy
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Croatia
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Describe the shell and other body features of Hermann's tortoise.
- Explain how a tortoise's year is shaped by hibernation, nesting and summer heat.
- Explain how nest temperature can decide whether baby tortoises are male or female.
- Name the main threats to Hermann's tortoises and how people protect them.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might a tortoise bask in the sun in the morning?
- Why could a wildfire be especially hard on a slow-moving animal?
- Why might a pet tortoise let go in the wild be a problem for wild tortoises?
Try at home or in class
- Shell measure: with a ruler, measure 15 centimeters, about the shell length of an adult Hermann's tortoise, and compare it with your hand.
- Growth rings: draw a shell plate with rings inside each other, one ring for each year, and count how old your drawn tortoise would be.
Key vocabulary: carapace, plastron, hibernate, clutch, subspecies, vulnerable
Where these facts come from
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN terms of use (no redistribution of Red List data or range maps))
- Testudo hermanni (Luiselli, assessed 5 May 2024, published 2024, errata version 2025) , IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Testudo hermanni: justification, range, population, habitat, threats, use and trade, and conservation text , IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Testudo hermanni: IUCN Red List global assessment record (Luiselli 2024), IUCN checklist on GBIF , GBIF
- Testudo hermanni (Gmelin 1789): Hermann's Tortoise (Bertolero, Cheylan, Hailey, Livoreil and Willemsen 2011), Chelonian Research Monographs 5 , IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group
- File:Testudo hermanni hermanni Mallorca 02.jpg (Orchi) , Wikimedia Commons
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.