Reptilia · Testudines
Terrapene ornataAgassiz, 1857
Ornate Box Turtle
Photograph by Justin Quintanilla, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active turtle from the Nearctic region, reaching 140 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Testudines › Emydidae › Terrapene
- Grows to
- 140mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 40years
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than only 4% 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
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
- Near Threatened
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Colour on the back
- Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 40years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 28°C82 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 25–30.8°C77–87 °F
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 140mm5.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 414g14.6 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 394.5g13.9 oz
- Body mass at hatching
- 10.3g0.36 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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Wetlands
- Region
- Nearctic
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1000m
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Gestation or incubation
- 63days
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Age at first breeding · female
- 2920days
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- Terrapene ornata ornata (AGASSIZ 1857) Terrapene ornata luteola SMITH & RAMSEY 1952
- Described by
- Agassiz
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1857
Keeping one
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 82 °F (28 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
42kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 414 g, the heaviest recorded for Ornate 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.
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
- — 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
- — 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 ornata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/terrapene-ornata
@misc{terrapene_ornata_2026,
title = {Terrapene ornata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/terrapene-ornata}
}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.