Male leopard tortoises fight for mating rights while female runs away

When hearing the word tortoise, the first image that pops up in my mind is that of a notoriously slow-moving creature, with the ability to carry its own home on its back while mostly seen alone. When you find three tortoises together and the tensions are high, it is amazing to watch these creatures do battle in real ‘speed’.Show more

I was driving along a main road in the Kruger National Park when I spotted small odd shapes in the distance of the road. As I approached the small strange looking figures in the road, I quickly realised it was three leopard tortoises together. It is not uncommon to have to stop and wait for a single leopard tortoise to slowly cross the road, but to find three tortoises together was an amazing experience and a first for me. I quickly realised that these three tortoises were not busy crossing the road. I stopped a few meters away to see what this gathering was all about. The one tortoise was climbing onto another tortoise and the third tortoise right behind them. To my total surprise, the third tortoise suddenly decided to spoil the moment and bashed into the much larger tortoise, pushing it off the back of the other tortoise. It was all suddenly clear what was going on here. Its extremely hard to determine the sex of a tortoise by just looking at it from the top. Based on the behaviour I witnessed, it was clear that I was looking at two males and a female leopard tortoise. The large male that’s been pushed off did not take well to a much smaller male busting his moment. I even thought to myself that this smaller male either had some serious confidence or he was just plain silly. The large male tortoise lost all interest in the female and zoned all his focus onto the smaller male, retaliating with a full bulldozing attack.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The large male lost it and kept pushing and bulldozing the younger male around without stop. The female decided she was not going to hang around for this fight and without the males even noticing, the female got away at great ‘speed’. The males continued with their battle, with the large male clearly in charge until suddenly the smaller male tortoise realised that he had one advantage over the large male. He was smaller and ‘faster’ and finally decided to set foot and attempt to outrun the larger male. It was so hilarious to watch two tortoises running down the road and chasing each other at great tortoise speeds. It was the fastest I have ever seen any tortoises move in my life. Even though the smaller tortoise was lighter and faster, it seemed the larger tortoise managed to make better ground with his bigger strides. I was a bit disappointed not to have seen the end to this battle as both disappeared into thick grass where I am sure their battle continued. One of the most amusing and unexpected sites I have seen in a very long time