All Angles Creatures
Testudines · ChelidaeEntry 7,529 of 21,572
Lavarack's Turtle, Elseya lavarackorum

Reptilia · Testudines

Elseya lavarackorumWhite & Archer, 1994

Lavarack's Turtle

Photograph by Faendalimas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A water-living, plant-eating turtle from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 35 cm across the shell.

Also called Gulf Snapping Turtle.

Reptilia › Testudines › Chelidae › Elseya

Grows to
350mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Herbivorous
Lives up to
21.8years
Lives
Aquatic
Shell length across Chelidae

Longer than 69% of all species in Chelidae anyone has measured.

69% of 29 species are smaller31% larger
155 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest950 mm

The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because shell length here runs from 155 to 950 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.

What is known

18 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

The animal itself

Colour on the back
Brown
Pattern on the back
Uniform
Pupil
Round
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
21.8years

Size

Shell length, front to back · greatest recorded
350mm14 in

straight carapace length, measured in a line rather than over the curve

Body mass · greatestcomputed
4295g9.5 lb

largely converted from length by allometry in the source

Body mass at hatching
15.7g0.55 oz

How it lives

Diet
Herbivorous

Plants

Where it lives
Aquatic
Region
Australo-Pacific

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
5eggs

Naming and history

Subspecies
No
Described by
White & Archer
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1994

Keeping one

5 ft 9 in × 2 ft 10 in(175 × 88 cm)

Minimum floor length × width, for one animal. Bigger is always better. The standard sets no height for turtles and tortoises.

The standard sizes this genus at 5 times carapace length, with the width half the resulting length.

For a third and fourth turtle the standard asks for at least 10% more floor area each, and 20% more from the fifth onwards.

Water depth is set against the animal's carapace width rather than its length, so no figure is given here. Dry-country tortoises need no water area, only occasional bathing; tortoises from wetter regions need a water dish.

Swiss law reaches the same 8 × 4 of carapace length for land tortoises, arrived at separately from the German gutachten.

Gutachten über Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengruppe tierschutzgerechte Haltung von Terrarientieren), German Federal Ministry, 10 January 1997, section 5. The standard states these are recommendations rather than binding limits.

Swiss Tierschutzverordnung (TSchV), SR 455.1, Anhang 2, Tabelle 5 — legally binding minimum enclosure sizes, which give every land tortoise 8 × 4 body lengths for two animals.

From this animal’s own carapace length of 14 in (350 mm), at 5 times it — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Lavarack's Turtle. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.

Feeding

Prey size does not apply. A herbivore's diet is judged on fibre, on the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, and on avoiding plants high in oxalates.

The animal does not take prey items. This is established practice, not a measurement.

333kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 4,295 g, the heaviest recorded for Lavarack's Turtle — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.

An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.

What nobody knows

These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.

  • — Still living
  • — Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
  • — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
  • — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
  • — Length snout to vent · adult mean
  • — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
  • — Female length · mean, nose to tail
  • — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
  • — Length nose to tail · adult mean
  • — Largest female · snout to vent
  • — Largest male · snout to vent
  • — Largest female · shell length
  • — Largest male · shell length
  • — Hatchling length · snout to vent
  • — Hatchling length · nose to tail
  • — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
  • — Largest juvenile · shell length
  • — Egg length
  • — Egg width
  • — Body mass · a typical adult
  • — Body mass · adult female, mean
  • — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
  • — Eats arthropods
  • — Eats vertebrates
  • — Eats plant matter
  • — How it hunts
  • — Active
  • — How the young develop
  • — Gestation or incubation
  • — Smallest clutch recorded
  • — Largest clutch recorded
  • — Mean clutch · smallest reported
  • — Mean clutch · largest reported
  • — Clutches in a year
  • — Clutches a year · fewest
  • — Clutches a year · most
  • — First breeds from · youngest recorded
  • — First breeds by · oldest recorded
  • — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
  • — Hatchling length · largest recorded
  • — Age at first breeding · female
  • — Mature from · youngest recorded
  • — Mature by · oldest recorded
  • — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
  • — Size at maturity · largest recorded
  • — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
  • — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
  • — Limbs
  • — Sex decided by
  • — Conservation status
  • — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
  • — Population trend
  • — Red List criteria
  • — Biome
  • — Active season · shortest recorded
  • — Active season · longest recorded
  • — Density · lowest recorded
  • — Density · highest recorded
  • — Home range · largest recorded
  • — Suborder
  • — Infraorder
  • — Type locality
  • — Habitat
  • — Active in
  • — Mainland or island
  • — Lowest it lives · above sea level
  • — Highest it lives · above sea level
  • — Range size

Others in Chelidae

Take this data

Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.

This species as JSON · the whole dataset

Cite this page

The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Elseya lavarackorum. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/elseya-lavarackorum

@misc{elseya_lavarackorum_2026,
  title  = {Elseya lavarackorum},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/elseya-lavarackorum}
}

Sources

  1. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.