Reptilia · Testudines
Platysternon megacephalumGray, 1831
Big-headed Turtle
Photograph by Toby Y, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A water-living, nocturnal turtle from the Oriental region, reaching 201 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Testudines › Platysternidae › Platysternon
- Grows to
- 201mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 27years
- Lives
- Aquatic
What is known
19 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
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 27years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 20.75°C69 °F
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 201mm8 in
total length, tail included — Colston, Kulkarni, Jetz, and Pyron, 2020, BMC Evol. Biol., 20:81
How it lives
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest, Wetlands
- Region
- Oriental
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 675m
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.5eggs
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- Platysternon megacephalum megacephalum GRAY 1831 Platysternon megacephalum peguense GRAY 1870 Platysternon megacephalum shiui ERNST & MCCORD 1987
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1831
Keeping one
Big-headed Turtle 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.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 69 °F (20.8 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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 · greatest
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Diet
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — 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
- — Range size
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). Platysternon megacephalum. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platysternon-megacephalum
@misc{platysternon_megacephalum_2026,
title = {Platysternon megacephalum},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platysternon-megacephalum}
}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.