Hermann's tortoise is one of only a handful of tortoise species native to Europe. Its year is divided: active foraging in spring and autumn, a reduction in activity through the hottest summer weeks, and brumation in a shallow scrape or under leaf litter from roughly November to March, depending on latitude.
Brumation is not simply endurance. In keeping, tortoises deprived of a proper cool dormant period commonly show poor or absent breeding, and controlled overwintering at low temperature is standard practice in European captive breeding programmes for the species.
Hatchling sex is decided separately, by nest temperature during incubation rather than by chromosomes. Cooler nests produce males and warmer nests females, with the switch falling near the low thirties Celsius. That dependence is what makes warming summers a live concern for the species rather than an abstract one.