Turtle

A turtle (in Java Edition), also known as a sea turtle (in Bedrock Edition), is a common passive mob found in beach biomes. They are the only source of scutes, which drop from baby turtles when they mature into adults.

Spawning[]

Turtles spawn on the sand in the Overworld on beaches with daylight, but not in its snowy variant or stony shores, occasionally in small groups of up to 5 individuals.

10% of turtles spawned are babies.

In Java Edition, turtles spawn at light levels greater than 8, on sand blocks less than 4 blocks above sea level.

In Bedrock Edition, turtles spawn in groups of 2–6, at light level 7 or higher, at Y=60–67.

Drops[]

When turtles die, they drop:

• 0–2 seagrass. The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0–5 with Looting III.
• 1–3, if killed by a player or tamed wolf.
• 1 bowl, if killed by lightning.^[1]

Baby turtles do not drop anything when they die.

When a baby turtle grows up to an adult it drops:

• 1 scute

Upon successful breeding, 1–7 is dropped.

Behavior[]

Turtles can both move around on land and swim in water. They move slowly on land, but they can swim at a fast speed in the water. Like other passive mobs, they move around aimlessly and flee when attacked. When on land, they generally attempt to move to the nearest water source with direct sky access.^[verify] 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,^[2] but they can be led by a player holding seagrass within 10 blocks of the turtle.

Turtles can be picked up by boats‌^{[Java Edition only]} and minecarts.

Turtles are killed instantly when struck by lightning.

As with other aquatic mobs, turtles suffer extra damage when hit by a trident with the Impaling enchantment,‌^{[Java Edition only]}‌^{[until JE Edition Combat Tests]} and cannot drown, despite the fact that real-life turtles breathe air.

Predators[]

Turtles and turtle eggs are attacked by the following mobs:

Mob	Attack baby turtles	Attack adult turtles	Attack turtle eggs
Zombies, zombie villagers, husks and drowned	Yes	No	Yes
Zombified piglins,	No	No	Yes
Skeletons, strays and wither skeletons	Yes	No	No
Goats	Randomly	Randomly	No
Wild ocelots, wild wolves, stray cats and foxes	Yes	No	No
Tamed wolves	When owner attacks	When owner attacks	No
Zoglins	Yes	Yes	No
Johnny vindicators	Yes	Yes	No
Wardens	Randomly	Randomly	N/A
Withers	Yes	Yes	Partial[note 1]
Ravagers	No	No	Partial[note 1]‌[BE only]

Zombies and their variants deliberately trample on turtle eggs, causing them to break.

Home beach[]

Turtles remember the block on which they hatch as their home beach. No matter how far away the turtle is, it always attempts to return to its home beach 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 mob spawners, it remembers the spawn location as its home beach.

Breeding[]

Feeding two turtles seagrass causes them to enter love mode, causing one of the turtles to have eggs in its inventory and appear a bit bigger (about 0.2 of a block) than normal turtles. The pregnant turtle then travels back to its home beach, which is where it first spawned. Upon arrival, it seeks a nearby sand block on which to lay its eggs. A turtle always lays eggs within 9 blocks from where it was born. The turtle digs vigorously while turning 360 degrees for several seconds a few times, and then lays 1–4 turtle eggs. Turtles have a 90-second cooldown after breeding in Bedrock Edition, and a five-minute cooldown in Java Edition.

Eggs[]

Turtle eggs can be placed on any block in clusters of up to 4, however, they hatch only 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 multi-egg block is trampled, eggs are broken one at a time. A turtle can walk on the eggs without breaking them. Harvesting eggs with Silk Touch drops an egg, which the player can collect. Mining an egg with Silk Touch resets the egg's growth.

Turtle eggs progress toward hatching by cracking. Cracking occurs during random ticks, and an egg hatches once it has cracked 3 times. When a multi-egg block hatches, all eggs within the block hatch simultaneously. Eggs grow fastest during the night and typically take 4 to 5 in-game days to hatch. See Turtle egg#Hatching for more details.

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 search for the nearest water block within a 47×1×47 region two blocks below the turtle and attempt to approach it.

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 scute.

Sounds[]

Java Edition:
Turtles use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Turtle breathes [sound 1]	Friendly Creatures	Randomly while on land	entity.turtle.ambient_land[sound 1]	subtitles.entity.turtle.ambient_land[sound 1]	0.8 [sound 2]	0.8-1.2 (Baby: 1.3-1.7)	16
	Turtle dies	Friendly Creatures	When an adult turtle dies	entity.turtle.death	subtitles.entity.turtle.death	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Turtle baby dies	Friendly Creatures	When a baby turtle dies	entity.turtle.death_baby	subtitles.entity.turtle.death_baby	1.0	1.3-1.7	16
	Turtle hurts	Friendly Creatures	When an adult turtle is damaged	entity.turtle.hurt	subtitles.entity.turtle.hurt	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Turtle baby hurts	Friendly Creatures	When a baby turtle is damaged	entity.turtle.hurt_baby	subtitles.entity.turtle.hurt_baby	1.0	1.3-1.7	16
	Turtle Egg hatches	Blocks	When a baby turtle is hatched	entity.turtle.egg_hatch	subtitles.entity.turtle.egg_hatch	0.7	0.9-1.1	?
	Turtle lays egg	Friendly Creatures	When a turtle lays an egg	entity.turtle.lay_egg	subtitles.entity.turtle.lay_egg	0.3	0.9-1.1	16
	Turtle swims [sound 1]	Friendly Creatures	Randomly while swimming	entity.turtle.swim[sound 1]	subtitles.entity.turtle.swim[sound 1]	varies [sound 3]	0.8-1.2	16
	Turtle shambles	Friendly Creatures	While an adult turtle is walking on land	entity.turtle.shamble	subtitles.entity.turtle.shamble	0.15	1.0	16
	Turtle baby shambles	Friendly Creatures	While a baby turtle is walking on land	entity.turtle.shamble_baby	subtitles.entity.turtle.shamble_baby	0.15	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Friendly Creatures	Randomly	mob.turtle.ambient	1.0	0.8-1.2 (Baby: 1.3-1.7)
	Friendly Creatures	When an adult turtle dies	mob.turtle.death	1.0	0.8-1.2
	Friendly Creatures	When a baby turtle dies	mob.turtle_baby.death	1.0	1.3-1.7
	Friendly Creatures	When an adult turtle is damaged	mob.turtle.hurt	1.0	0.8-1.2
	Friendly Creatures	When a baby turtle is damaged	mob.turtle_baby.hurt	1.0	1.3-1.7
	Friendly Creatures	When a baby turtle is hatched	mob.turtle_baby.born	1.0	1.0
	Blocks	When a turtle lays an egg	block.turtle_egg.drop	0.85	0.9
	Friendly Creatures	While a turtle is swimming	mob.turtle.swim	1.0	0.6-1.4
	Friendly Creatures	While an adult turtle is walking	mob.turtle.step	1.0	1.0
	Friendly Creatures	While a baby turtle is walking	mob.turtle_baby.step	1.0	1.0

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Translation key
Turtle	turtle	entity.minecraft.turtle

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Turtle	turtle	74	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.

Advancements[]

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Monster Hunter	Kill one of these 70 mobs near a sculk catalyst: Axolotl Bee Blaze Camel Cat Cave Spider Chicken Chicken Jockey Cod Cow Creeper Donkey Dolphin Drowned Elder Guardian Enderman Endermite Evoker Fox Frog Ghast Goat Glow Squid Guardian Hoglin Horse Husk Llama Magma Cube Mooshroom Ocelot Panda Parrot Phantom Pig Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Polar Bear Pufferfish Rabbit Ravager Salmon Sheep Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Skeleton Horse Skeleton Horseman Slime Sniffer Stray Spider Spider Jockey Squid Strider Trader Llama Tropical Fish Turtle Vex Vindicator Warden Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Wolf Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.	adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst
	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed two animals together	Husbandry	Breed a pair of any of these 25 mobs: Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule 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.	husbandry/breed_an_animal
	Two by Two	Breed all the animals!	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed a pair of each of these 24 mobs: Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule 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.	husbandry/bred_all_animals

History[]

August 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 at Minecraft.net.
Java Edition
1.13		18w07a			Added turtles and baby 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			Due to a bug, the baby turtle and turtle models are currently broken.[3]
		19w40a			The turtle models have been fixed.
1.18.2		22w03a			Baby turtles no longer suffocate when on soul sand.[4]
1.19.3		22w44a			Turtles now have a breeding delay like other mobs.[5]
1.20.2		23w31a			Turtles now trigger sculk sensors when they clear away sand.[6]
Bedrock Edition
1.5.0		beta 1.5.0.4			Added turtles (named sea turtles) and baby 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			Sea turtles now play a sound when they lay eggs.
Legacy Console Edition
TU69		1.76	Patch 38		Added sea turtles and baby sea turtles.

Issues[]

Issues relating to "Turtle" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Gallery[]

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.

Developer screenshots[]

• 

  The first released screenshot of a turtle.

• 

  Turtle in early development.

• 

  A baby turtle on top of the head of an adult.

In other media[]

• 

  Turtles as seen in the Update Aquatic artwork.

• 

  Official turtle artwork.

• 

  Artwork of baby turtles.

• 

  A Ruby Baby Turtle, a unique variation found in Minecraft Dungeons.

• 

  Lego Minecraft Turtle.

• 

  Mojang Studios' animation showing when a turtle becomes a bowl.

Textures[]

• 

References[]

External Links[]

• Mob Menagerie: Turtle – Minecraft.net on June 1, 2023