Further details of egg-laying behavior are the same as those detailed for the marginated tortoise.

The marginated tortoise is herbivorous, and hibernates for the winter.

Marginated tortoise are fairly calm and relaxed although can be somewhat territorial in the wild.

Three additional taxa of marginated tortoises have been named:

Early in the morning, marginated tortoises bask in the sun to raise their body temperature, and then search for food.

Marginated tortoises grow very rapidly.

In temperate zones, marginated tortoises can be kept outside from approximately mid-March to October.

Marginated tortoises are herbivorous, their diet consisting primarily of plants from their native Mediterranean region.

Marginated Tortoise.

It has been proposed to unite this species with the Marginated Tortoise in the genus Chersus.

Testudo graeca is also closely related to the marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata).

The natural range of the marginated tortoise is southern Greece, from the Peloponnesus to Mount Olympus.

Marginated tortoises (Testudo marginata)

The nominate subspecies is the Greek marginated tortoise, Testudo marginata marginata.

The so-called "Dwarf marginated tortoise" was described as a new species Testudo weissingeri, but it is not recognizably distinct phylogenetically.

The marginated tortoise lives in more mountainous regions than Hermann's tortoise (Testudo hermanni).

The Sardinian marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata sarda) is the name usually used to separate the population on Sardinia.

Among the seven species of native turtles, the most widespread are the European pond terrapin, Marginated Tortoise and Greek Tortoise.

A population of small and light-colored marginated tortoises exists on the southwestern coast of the Peloponnesus, between Kalamata and south of Stoupa.

The marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata) is a species of tortoise found in Greece, Italy and the Balkans in southern Europe.

Recently featured: Growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy – Marginated tortoise – India 'Marilyn Hacker' (born 1942) is an United States poet, critic, and reviewer.

The marginated tortoise was formally described by German naturalist Johann David Schoepf in 1789, its specific epithet marginata a straightforward derivation from the Latin term for 'marginated'.

The Egyptian tortoise appears to represent a lineage that diverged from the same ancestral stock southwards into northeastern Africa around the same time as the marginated tortoise's ancestors diverged in Greece.

There is a distinct local form of the marginated tortoise on the island however, and that seems to have originated from a deliberate introduction by humans, perhaps by Greek or Roman landowners in the classical antiquity.

Evidence in favor of this is the wide geographical region and the extremely large number of subspecies of Testudo graeca, including a subspecies in Turkey with strongly bent carapace tiles, like the marginated tortoise.

These tortoises have less strongly bent tiles in the posterior of the carapace, and the posterior of the carapace is almost smooth compared with the saw-like Testudo marginata marginata.