The specific name, spekii, is in honor of English explorer John Hanning Speke.

Its carapace has a weak, disrupted medial keel, and posterior marginals that are neither strongly serrated nor reverted.

[2] Speke's hinge-back tortoise is found in East Africa from Uganda and Kenya south to Eswatini, next to Mozambique and Zululand.

It tends to inhabit more wooded areas during the dry season, and to move out into the savannahs when the summer rains come.

[citation needed] K. spekii feeds on small flowers, leaves, grass, herbs, succulents and fungi.