Reptilia · Testudines
Malayemys macrocephalaGray, 1859
Rice-field Terrapin
Photograph by Krittiya Chiangkul, Poramad Trivalairat and Watchariya…, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
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A meat-eating turtle from the Oriental region, reaching 220 mm nose to tail.
Also called Malayan Snail-eating Turtle, Malayan snail-eating turtle.
Reptilia › Testudines › Geoemydidae › Malayemys
- Grows to
- 220mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal, nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 14.2years
Longer than only 32% of all species in Geoemydidae anyone has measured.
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 130 to 800 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
22 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
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 14.2years
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 220mm8.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1580g3.5 lb
total length, tail included — Colston, Kulkarni, Jetz, and Pyron, 2020, BMC Evol. Biol., 20:81
largely converted from length by allometry in the source
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal, nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Aquatic, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Wetlands
- Region
- Oriental
Invertebrates
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 7
midpoint of the reported range — Keithmaleesatti, Varanusupakul, Siriwong, Thirakhupt, Robson, and Kitana, 2009, Int. J. Bioeng. Life Sci., 3:193-198
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1859
Keeping one
No enclosure size is given here
The standard sets enclosure size for turtles and tortoises genus by genus, and this genus is not among the roughly sixty it lists. No figure is given rather than one borrowed from a different animal.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Rice-field Terrapin. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
137kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,580 g, the heaviest recorded for Rice-field Terrapin — 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
- — Shell length, front to back · greatest recorded
- — 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Geoemydidae
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). Malayemys macrocephala. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malayemys-macrocephala
@misc{malayemys_macrocephala_2026,
title = {Malayemys macrocephala},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malayemys-macrocephala}
}Sources
- 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.
- 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.