Turtle

For other uses, see Turtle (disambiguation).

Turtle

Adult

Baby

Health points	30HP × 15
Behavior	Passive
Mob type	Animal Aquatic
Hitbox size	In Java Edition: Adult: Height: 0.4 blocks Width: 1.2 blocks Baby: Height: 0.12 blocks Width: 0.36 blocks In Bedrock Edition: Adult: Height: 0.4 blocks Width: 1.2 blocks Baby: Height: 0.032 blocks Width: 0.096 blocks
Speed	0.25
Spawn	Beach When a turtle egg hatches (as a baby turtle).
Usable items	Seagrass Golden Dandelion (baby only)

Turtles are passive mobs found in beach biomes. They can be bred with seagrass and lay turtle eggs. They are the only source of turtle scutes, which drop from baby turtles when they mature into adults, and can be used to craft turtle shell helmets.

Spawning

Turtles occasionally spawn in small groups on the sand in beaches, but not in snowy beaches or stony shores.

Turtles have a 5% chance to spawn as babies.

In Java Edition, turtles spawn in groups of up to 5 individuals, y level less than 4 blocks above sea level (from y level -64 to 66, inclusive), and on blocks with the sand tag (sand, red sand, and suspicious sand).

In Bedrock Edition, turtles spawn in groups of 2–6, at Y=60–67.

Turtle spawns in:

Category: Creature	Java Edition			Bedrock Edition
Spawn area	Spawn weight	Spawn chance	Group size	Spawn weight	Group size
Beach	5⁄5	100%	2–5	8	2–6

Drops

Breeding

Upon successful breeding, 1–7XP is dropped.

On death

Java Edition:

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	0–2	66.67%	1.00	0–3	83.33%	1.50	0–4	91.67%	2.00	0–5	94.44%	2.50
	Bowl[B]	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	0–2	2⁄3	1	0–3	5⁄6	3⁄2	0–4	11⁄12	2	0–5	17⁄18	5⁄2
	Bowl[B]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1

Item		Amount	Probability
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	0	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)	1⁄12 (8.33%)	1⁄18 (5.56%)
		1	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)
		2	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)	5⁄18 (27.78%)
		3	0	1⁄6 (16.67%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)	5⁄18 (27.78%)
		4	0	0	1⁄12 (8.33%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)
		5	0	0	0	1⁄18 (5.56%)
		Average	1 (1.00)	3⁄2 (1.50)	2 (2.00)	5⁄2 (2.50)
	Bowl[B]	1	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)
		Average	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)

Killed		1
Item		Expected Drops
		Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	1.00	1.50	2.00	2.50
	Bowl[B]	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00

Bedrock Edition:

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	0–2	66.67%	1.00	0–3	66.67%	1.33	0–4	66.67%	1.67	0–5	66.67%	2.00
	Bowl[B]	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	0–2	2⁄3	1	0–3	2⁄3	4⁄3	0–4	2⁄3	5⁄3	0–5	2⁄3	2
	Bowl[B]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1

Item		Amount	Probability
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	0	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)
		1	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)	1⁄12 (8.33%)	1⁄18 (5.56%)
		2	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)
		3	0	1⁄6 (16.67%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)	2⁄9 (22.22%)
		4	0	0	1⁄12 (8.33%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)
		5	0	0	0	1⁄18 (5.56%)
		Average	1 (1.00)	4⁄3 (1.33)	5⁄3 (1.67)	2 (2.00)
	Bowl[B]	1	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)
		Average	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)

Killed		1
Item		Expected Drops
		Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Seagrass[A]	1.00	1.33	1.67	2.00
	Bowl[B]	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00

• 1–3XP, if killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Baby turtles do not drop anything when they die.

Growth

When a baby turtle matures into an adult, it drops 1 turtle scute.

Behavior

Turtles can move around slowly on land and swim at a fast speed in water. Like other passive mobs, they move around aimlessly and flee when attacked. When on land, they generally attempt to move to near water, regardless if player made or natural. When in an enclosed area, such as a player-made enclosure, they generally swim in circles if the water is in the area, and rarely go on land to explore, if there is any.

Turtles cannot be attached to leads,^[1] but they can be led by a player holding seagrass within 10 blocks of the turtle.

Turtles can be picked up by boats and minecarts.

Turtles are directly dealt 3.4×10³⁸ ( × 1.7×10³⁸) damage in Java Edition or take 200,000% of the base damage in Bedrock Edition when struck by lightning.

As with other aquatic mobs, turtles suffer extra damage when hit by a trident with the Impaling enchantment in Java Edition, and cannot drown regardless of version despite the fact that real-life turtles breathe air.

Moving to water

In Java Edition, when a turtle is on land, it usually searches for water and then attempts to move toward it.

To find water, an expanding square search is conducted inside a 47×1×47 region centered two blocks below the turtle. Both source and flowing water blocks can be selected, but waterlogged blocks do not qualify. The selected water block doesn't require sky access, nor does it need to be reachable by the turtle.

Once a suitable water target is found, the turtle moves toward it. This behavior ends whenever it enters any water. However, in the case of an unreachable target, the turtle gives up after approximately one minute, although it may search for water again later.

Adult turtles do not use this behavior while carrying eggs or returning to their home position.

Predators

Turtles and turtle eggs are attacked by the following mobs:

Mob	Attack baby turtles	Attack adult turtles	Attack turtle eggs
Bogged Fox Parched Skeleton Stray Stray cat Wild ocelot Wild wolf Wither Skeleton	Yes	No	No
Drowned Husk Zombie Zombie Villager	Yes	No	Yes
Goat	Randomly	Randomly	No
Ravager	No	No	No
Tamed wolf	When owner attacks	When owner attacks	No
Vindicator named "Johnny" Warden Zoglin	Yes	Yes	No
Wither	Yes	Yes	Partial[note 1]
Zombified Piglin	No	No	Yes

Zombies and their variants deliberately trample on turtle eggs, causing them to break. The range of detection is a 47×7×47‌‌^{[Java Edition only]} or 11×5×11‌‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} box centered on the block the mob is standing on.

Home position

A turtle remembers the block on which it spawned as its home position. No matter how far away the turtle is, it always attempts to return to its home position to lay its eggs after breeding.

If the player uses a tool enchanted with Silk Touch to obtain and move turtle eggs to a new location before hatching, the baby turtles remember the new hatching location as their home beach.

If a turtle is spawned from a spawn egg, summoned with the /summon command, or spawned by a monster spawner, it remembers the spawn location as its home position.

Breeding

Feeding two turtles seagrass results in them entering love mode and one of the turtles becoming pregnant. The pregnant turtle has eggs in its body and is therefore about 0.2 blocks taller than normal.

Egg laying

The turtle then travels back to its home position, which is where it first spawned. The turtle does not stop traveling until it is within a 9-block distance from its home position. Upon arrival, it seeks a nearby sand block on which to lay its eggs. Then, it spends a few seconds to a few minutes digging vigorously while turning 180 degrees a few times. Finally, it lays a cluster of 1–4 turtle eggs, as a single block. Turtles have a cooldown of 90 seconds (1800 game ticks) after breeding in Bedrock Edition, or 5 minutes (300 seconds; 6000 game ticks) in Java Edition.

Egg hatching

Turtle eggs progress toward hatching by cracking. Cracking occurs during random ticks, and an egg hatches once it has cracked 3 times. When a cluster of eggs hatches, all eggs within the block hatch simultaneously. Eggs crack more often at night and typically take 4 to 5 in-game days to hatch. Mining a cluster of turtle eggs with Silk Touch causes it to drop one egg at a time, which the player can collect. Eggs do not preserve the cracking stage when harvested.

Turtle eggs can be placed on any block in clusters of up to 4; however, they only hatch on sand, red sand, or suspicious sand, above or below water. Eggs can be broken without tools and can also be trampled by living entities falling or walking on them. When a cluster is trampled, the eggs crack and break one at a time. A turtle can walk on turtle eggs without breaking them.

Babies

With a height of 0.12 blocks, baby turtles are among the smallest mobs in the game. Baby turtles are small enough that when they walk on soul sand, they are entirely within the space at the top of the block.

Upon hatching, baby turtles attempt to reach water as described in Moving to water.

Baby turtles take one Minecraft day to grow up (20 minutes). The growth can be accelerated using seagrass. Each use reduces the remaining growth duration by 10%. Upon becoming an adult, the turtle drops a turtle scute.

Stray cats attack baby turtles within 15 blocks; tamed cats do not. The baby turtles make no attempt to flee from cats, even while being attacked.

The golden dandelion can be used on baby turtles to stop them from aging, and can be used on them again to resume their growth.

Sounds

Generic

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Adult

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Baby

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	Translation key
Turtle	turtle	aquatic can_breathe_under_water not_scary_for_pufferfish sensitive_to_impaling	entity.minecraft.turtle

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Family	Translation key
Turtle	turtle	74	aquatic baby_turtle mob turtle	entity.turtle.name

Entity data

Turtles have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		It Spreads	Kill a mob next to a catalyst	Kill any mob that drops experience near a sculk catalyst, with the sole exception of the ender dragon. Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this achievement.	10	Bronze

Achievements that apply to all mobs:

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		Overkill	Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.	30	Bronze
		Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall.	20	Silver
		Mob Kabob	Hit five mobs in the same Charge attack using the Spear	Armor stands and players also count for this achievement as they are technically mobs.	10	Bronze

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Kill any mob that drops experience near a sculk catalyst, with the sole exception of the ender dragon. Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.
	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed two animals together	Breed a pair of any of these 27 animals: Armadillo Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule Nautilus Ocelot Panda Pig Rabbit Sheep Sniffer Strider Trader Llama Turtle Wolf A mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breedable together. Other breedable mobs are ignored for this advancement.
	Two by Two	Breed all the animals!	Breed a pair of each of these 26 animals: Armadillo Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule Nautilus Ocelot Panda Pig Rabbit Sheep Sniffer Strider Turtle Wolf A trader llama does not count as a llama, and a mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breedable together. Other breedable mobs can be bred, but are ignored for this advancement.

Advancements that apply to all mobs:

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	Kill any mob, or be killed by any living entity.
	A Throwaway Joke	Throw a Trident at something. Note: Throwing away your only weapon is not a good idea.	Hit a mob with a thrown trident.
	Take Aim	Shoot something with an Arrow	Using a bow or a crossbow, shoot a mob with an arrow, tipped arrow, or spectral arrow.
	Mob Kabob	Hit five mobs in the same Charge attack using the Spear	Armor Stand and Mannequin also count for this advancement.
	Arbalistic	Kill five unique mobs with one crossbow shot	Armor Stand and Mannequin also count for this advancement. This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.
	Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall.

History

Announcement

October 17, 2012							On Reddit, Jeb was asked "I asked at pax about turtles, any work done about those?" and replied "No... I saw Mo' Creatures' turtles and got a bit demotivated to do my own ones. Maybe later..."
September 19, 2012							In a Reddit post anticipating the addition of another animal mob (which turned out to be the bat in 12w38a), Jeb replied to confirm that it would not be a turtle: "The truth is that I'll maybe end up adding turtles one day, it's just that Mo's turtles are difficult to top."
December 26, 2017							Turtle mobs were announced on Minecraft.net.

Java Edition

Java Edition
1.13			18w07a				Added turtles.
			18w07b				Turtles are now bred using seagrass, instead of raw cod.
			18w11a				Added drowned, which attack baby turtles.
1.14			18w44a				Added stray cats, which attack baby turtles.
			19w07a				Added foxes, which attack baby turtles.
1.15			19w39a				The turtle models have changed; adult and baby turtles look different from each other, rather than simply being scale differences.
			19w40a				The turtle models have reverted.[2]
1.16			pre7				Turtles now spawn on any blocks with the sand block tag (sand and red sand).
1.18.2			22w03a				Baby turtles no longer suffocate when on soul sand.[3]
1.19.3			22w44a				Turtles now have a breeding delay like other mobs.[4]
1.19.4 Experiment Update 1.20			23w07a				Turtles can now spawn on suspicious sand, which was added to the sand block tag behind the "Update 1.20".experimental data pack.
1.20			23w12a				Turtles can spawn on suspicious sand without using the "Update 1.20" experimental datapack.
1.20.2			23w31a				Turtles clearing away sand now emit an entity_action vibration of frequency 4.[5]
1.20.5			23w51a				The subtitles of baby turtles have been updated to be grammatically correct.[6]
26.1			snap5				The model and texture of baby turtles have been changed.
							Added golden dandelions, which can be used to prevent baby turtles from growing up.

Bedrock Edition

Bedrock Edition
1.5.0			beta 1.5.0.4				Added turtles.
1.8.0			beta 1.8.0.8				Added stray cats, which attack baby turtles.
1.13.0			beta 1.13.0.1				Added foxes, which attack baby turtles.
1.16.100			beta 1.16.100.51				Turtles now play a sound when they lay eggs.
1.19.80			Preview 1.19.80.20				Turtles can now ride boats and boats with chests, to match Java Edition.
26.10			Preview 26.10.20				The model and texture of baby turtles have been changed.
			Preview 26.10.21				Added golden dandelions, which can be used to prevent baby turtles from growing up.
26.40			Preview 26.40.20				Turtles can now be attached to balloons.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU69		1.76	1.76	1.76	Patch 38		Added sea turtles and baby sea turtles.

Data history

Issues

Issues relating to "Turtle" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Gallery

Mojang images

• 
  The first released screenshot of a turtle
• 
  Turtle in early development
• 
  A baby turtle on top of the head of an adult
• 
  Turtles in a screenshot to celebrate World Sea Turtle Day
• 
  Sunny trying out the /ride command on a turtle^[7]
• 
  A turtle racing alongside a rabbit
• 
  Baby turtles following Efe

Screenshots

• 
  A baby turtle moving on the beach after being hatched
• 
  A turtle moving on land
• 
  A turtle swimming in a small pool of water
• 
  A skeleton attacking a baby turtle
• 
  A wolf attacking a group of baby turtles
• 
  Two turtles mating
• 
  A player luring a group of turtles using seagrass
• 
  Two turtles with some turtle eggs
• 
  More turtles with eggs
• 
  A turtle picked up by a boat
• 
  A large number of turtles in an artificial lake
• 
  An exhibit for turtles in a beach
• 

Textures

• 
  Turtle texture file
• 
  Baby Turtle texture file

In other media

• 
  Turtles as seen in the Update Aquatic artwork
• 
  Artwork of a turtle
• 
  Official turtle artwork
• 
  Artwork of a baby turtle alongside several other animals^[8]
• 
  Artwork of baby turtles and their eggs
• 
  Artwork of a turtle with a red parrot
• 
  Lego Minecraft turtle
• 
  Mojang Studios' animation showing when a turtle becomes a bowl
• 
  A Turtle icon used in the Minecraft Minigames results icons
• 
  A silhouette of a turtle as seen in A Minecraft Movie
• 
  Unused turtle pixel art image from bedrock edition
• 
  A turtle on sand
• 
  Previous image but cutaway of a rabbit controlling the turtle
• 
  Nerf turtle water gun

Social media

• 
  Baby turtle at a beach
• 
  Baby turtle at a canyon
• 
  Baby turtle at a castle
• 
  Baby turtle in a subway train
• 
  Baby turtle at a playground
• 
  Baby turtle at a ski resort

Other appearances

• 
  A turtle as it appears in Minecraft Dungeons
• 
  A turtle as it appears in Minecraft Legends
• 
  A turtle as it appears in Minecraft Blast

References

External links

• "Mob Menagerie: Turtle" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, June 1, 2023.