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Many tortoises have Gular Scutes, some are more pronounced than others. With Sulcata's, these scutes are highly pronounced in males and keepers can easily use that feature to separate male from female. The sexes cannot be distinguished from each other when young. The scutes get bigger with age. Sex determination in Sulcata's is more a matter of size than age. Typically they have to be over 14 inches to notice the size of a male's Gular Scutes. You can also flip them over to examine their belly (PLASTRON). Males will have a concave plastron and a female will have a flat one. The purpose of the "Concave Plastron" is so the male tortoise can mount & mate the female without falling off :-) Most tortoises are SEXUALLY DIMORPHIC and have subtle if not obvious physical differences.