The peak time for courtship and reproduction is the early wet season in April and May, although it can happen at any time. Courtship noises and possibly scent cues seem to attract other tortoises to 'courting sites' under fruiting trees such as Genipa. When two tortoises meet about a meter apart, they engage in some specific behaviors to identify the other. The first trigger is head and limb color; the bright red, orange, yellow, or white colors on the dark skin identify the other animal as the proper species. Next, the larger tortoise makes jerky side-to-side head movements for two to four seconds. If both tortoises are males, one will either withdraw and retreat, or they may try to ram each other, trying to get their gular scutes under the other one, then pushing them several meters away as quickly as possible. The defeated tortoise is sometimes flipped onto his back in the process. The defeated tortoise will leave the area afterwards. Neither head bobbing nor ritual combat have been observed in tortoises south of the Amazon Basin, possibly due to the lack of yellow-footed tortoises in the area. Males mounting other males, and even females mounting either sex have been witnessed and are thought to show dominance.
