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Daily movements and home range of Eastern Hermann's Tortoise, Testudo hermanni boettgeri (Reptilia: Testudines)

2019    Turkozan, Oguz; Karaman, Sezgin; Yilmaz, Can; Ulger, Celal

Understanding the movements of animals in the wild is critical for providing important information regarding their conservation and management. With this aim in mind, we studied a population of Testudo hermanni in their natural habitat using micro GPS devices. Additionally, using VHF transmitters we tracked six individuals (four females and two males) from May to August 2015. The overall home range size varied from 813 and 123,567 m(2). Home range size did not differ significantly between males and females, and was also independent of the size of the individual (expressed as straight carapace length). Individual movements were confined to short distances (males 25.7 m; females 18.5 m). Activity levels were highest in July and August for males and May and July for females.