Malacochersus tornieriSiebenrock, 1903

Pancake Tortoise

Photograph by Dave Pape, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, plant-eating tortoise from the Afrotropic region, reaching 18 cm across the shell.

Reptilia › Testudines › Testudinidae › Malacochersus

Grows to: 180mm; greatest recorded
Eats: Herbivorous
Active: Cathemeral
Lives up to: 25.9years

Body length across Testudinidae

Longer than only 27% of all tortoises anyone has measured.

27% of 45 species are smaller73% larger

99.8 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest1,200 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 body length here runs from 99.8 to 1,200 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

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

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Standing in the world

Conservation status: Critically Endangered
Population trend: Decreasing

The animal itself

Colour on the back: Brown
Pattern on the back: Blotched
Pupil: Round
Venomous: No
Fangs: None
Longest recorded life: 25.9years

Size

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded: 180mm7 in
Shell length, front to back · greatest recorded: 178mm7 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed: 1229g2.7 lb
Body mass · a typical adult: 391.3g13.8 oz
Body mass at hatching: 18.88g0.67 oz

How it lives

Diet: Herbivorous
How it hunts: Active foraging
Active: Cathemeral
Where it lives: Terrestrial
Habitat: Grassland, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
Region: Afrotropic
Highest it lives · above sea level: 929m

Breeding

Reproduction: Oviparous
Sex decided by: Temperature
Average clutch: 1eggs
Eggs or young per clutch: 1eggs

Naming and history

Subspecies: No
Described by: Siebenrock
Moved to another genus · since it was first described: Yes
Described in: 1903

Keeping one

Pancake Tortoise is assessed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.

4 ft 8 in × 2 ft 4 in(142 × 71 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 8 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.

Two national standards differ on this animal: the German gutachten gives 3 times carapace length and Swiss law gives 8. The larger is used here — a reference should not quietly pick the smaller of two published minimums.

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 7 in (178 mm), at 8 times it — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Pancake Tortoise. 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.

109kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 1,229 g, the heaviest recorded for Pancake Tortoise — 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
— 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 · 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 the young develop
— Gestation or incubation
— 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
— Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
— 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
— Active in
— Mainland or island
— Lowest it lives · above sea level
— Range size

Others in Testudinidae

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). Malacochersus tornieri. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malacochersus-tornieri

@misc{malacochersus_tornieri_2026,
  title  = {Malacochersus tornieri},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malacochersus-tornieri}
}

Sources

Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.