Reptilia · Testudines
Pelodiscus axenariaZhou, Zhang, Fang, 1991
Sand softshell turtle
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A water-living, day-active turtle from the Oriental region, reaching 13 cm across the shell.
Also called Chinese stone slab soft-shelled turtle, Hunan Softshell Turtle.
Reptilia › Testudines › Trionychidae › Pelodiscus
- Grows to
- 128.7mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Aquatic
Longer than only 16% of all species in Trionychidae 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 shell length here runs from 54 to 1,800 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
15 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, Yellow
- Pattern on the back
- Blotched
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Shell length, front to back · greatest recorded
- 128.7mm5 in
straight carapace length, measured in a line rather than over the curve
How it lives
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Aquatic
- Habitat
- Wetlands
- Region
- Oriental
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Zhou, Zhang, Fang
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1991
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 Sand softshell turtle. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
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 · greatest
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — 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
- — Active in
- — Mainland or island
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Trionychidae
- (Indian) Peacock Soft-shelled Turtle
- Amur Softshell Turtle
- Asian Giant soft-shelled Turtle
- Asian or Bibron’s Giant soft-shelled Turtle
- Asiatic Softshell Turtle
- Aubry’s Soft-shelled Turtle
- Bostami Turtle
- Burmese Flap-shelled Turtle
- Burmese Soft-shelled Turtle
- Chinese Soft-shelled Turtle
- Chinese stone slab soft-shelled turtle
- Cuatro Cienegas Softshell
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). Pelodiscus axenaria. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pelodiscus-axenaria
@misc{pelodiscus_axenaria_2026,
title = {Pelodiscus axenaria},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pelodiscus-axenaria}
}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.