Reptilia · Testudines
Terrapene carolinaLinnaeus, 1758
Three-toed box turtle
Photograph by “Jonathan Zander (Digon3)", CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A day-active turtle from the Nearctic region, reaching 200 mm nose to tail.
Also called Eastern Box Turtle, Florida Box Turtle, Gulf Coast Box Turtle.
Reptilia › Testudines › Emydidae › Terrapene
- Grows to
- 200mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 138years
- Lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
Longer than only 18% of all species in Emydidae 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 115 to 600 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
29 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
- Vulnerable
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Colour on the back
- Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Blotched, striped
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 138years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 25.6°C78 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 24.8–32°C77–90 °F
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 200mm7.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1093g2.4 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 372g13.1 oz
- Body mass at hatching
- 9.91g0.35 oz
total length, tail included — Colston, Kulkarni, Jetz, and Pyron, 2020, BMC Evol. Biol., 20:81
largely converted from length by allometry in the source
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Region
- Nearctic
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 152m
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–11eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Age at first breeding · female
- 2190days
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- Terrapene carolina bauri TAYLOR 1895 Terrapene carolina carolina (LINNAEUS 1758) Terrapene carolina major (AGASSIZ 1857)
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
Keeping one
Three-toed box turtle is assessed as Vulnerable 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 78 °F (25.6 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
99kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,093 g, the heaviest recorded for Three-toed box 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.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 1 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Subspecies and patternbreeder consensus
How boldly yellow or orange the shell markings are, and adult size. This follows the subspecies and the population rather than a gene.
Worth knowing. Box turtles home. A displaced animal will try to walk back toward where it was taken from and frequently dies attempting it, so an adult found in the wild is best left there — and wild populations, already assessed as Vulnerable, replace themselves very slowly.
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 · adult female, mean
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest 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 Emydidae
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). Terrapene carolina. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/terrapene-carolina
@misc{terrapene_carolina_2026,
title = {Terrapene carolina},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/terrapene-carolina}
}Sources
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.