Well, actually, there's a meaningful difference between tortoises and other turtles. All tortoises are in fact turtles—that is, they belong to the order Testudines or Chelonia, reptiles having bodies encased in a bony shell—but not all turtles are tortoises.
Baby Turtles Are Called Hatchlings.
Speckled Cape tortoise
The Speckled tortoise (Homopus signatus), also known as the Speckled Cape tortoise or Speckled padloper, is the world's smallest tortoise. A member of the genus Homopus, it is endemic to South Africa and Southern Namibia.
Now both male and female pancake tortoise are equally as flat as you can see here but when you lookMoreNow both male and female pancake tortoise are equally as flat as you can see here but when you look at them from the top the male usually has a wider more robust looking head than the female.
The easiest way to determine the sex of a tortoise is to look at the tail. The females, as a general rule, have smaller tails, dropped down, whereas the males have much longer tails which are usually pulled up and to the side of the rear shell.
Tortoises will have sunken eyes and swollen eyelids when deceased. However, sunken eyes may also result from dehydration. If your tortoise has sunken eyes and isn't moving, check if it's dehydrated and able to move. If not, it's likely dead.
Turtle and tortoise eggs can be hard-shelled or relatively soft depending on the particular species. New-laid turtle and tortoise eggs tend to have a bluish-white hue. Within 2 days, the eggs of many species will "chalk over", that is the shell will become a more opaque, chalky, white color.
Soft-shelled turtle eggs (from all kinds of turtles, not just soft-shelled ones) are usually eaten raw or very lightly heated, and their taste is said to be more flavorful than chicken eggs though some note a “musky” aftertaste.
Can tortoises and turtles lay eggs without mating? Yes, they can. In fact, just like a chicken or a duck does – if a female tortoise doesn't find a mate and get fertilized, her eggs will appear anyway.
Mating occurs any time other than during hibernation. Females store sperm and may lay fertile eggs for several years after separation from a male. Tortoise Group and federal and state wildlife agencies strongly discourage allowing captive desert tortoises to mate.