Talk:Turtle

Java developers recently confirmed in this article some complex turtle behaviors, such as turtles having a home beach. It also mentions turtle eggs hatching faster at night (possibly?). -EatingSilencerforBreakfast (talk) 19:57, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

I went to find out why a bunch of turtle eggs I've been protecting wouldn't hatch, resorted to accelerating the game ticks at one point which did work but I don't like doing that, and I found mention that night time naturally decreases the time they take to hatch. I've been building an outpost near the beach, so I kept sleeping the instant I could to spare myself the trouble of keeping a vigil. It feels like noting the need for night exposure should be in the article so that other people don't have to find out through other sources. --98.114.149.132 02:12, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I should also note that they tend to progress or hatch close to dawn in my experience. --98.114.149.132 00:37, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, the current version does say the three stages a turtle egg goes through are incremented at random, but it would be good to have an idea of the range of time to expect. Seems to be at least 3 nights from my experience. Amatulic (talk) 22:52, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I also seem to remember reading (elsewhere?) that they require exposure to night sky. I've been trying to protect them lately using Glass-above, and wondering if it's Blocking too much(?) Light, total, and /or it has to be unobstructed, anyway. Yilante 11 /9 /18 2:19 pm 76.209.248.192 22:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

It's easy enough to test in creative. On a sand beach, build a little gazebo with a roof, place some eggs inside and some eggs outside the gazebo, wait about 5 day/night cycles, and see if only the outdoor ones hatch. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I got a Baby Turtle to Hatch (under Glass), but still no Eggs (in many day /night cycles) have Hatched in the Solid Block covered (sky - sun /day and /or moon /night - Light, Blocked) areas. Glad I went with the decorative Glass everywhere possible. Yilante 11 /10 /18 5:40 p.m. 76.209.248.192 01:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Good to know. I added a sentence to the turtle egg article about this. ~Amatulić (talk) 07:55, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm confused again (re-confused..?). I'd put a Turtle Egg underground (Blocked from - most? - Light), away from - direct - sun /moon /any-Direct, Light.

It finally Hatched (and then Grew-up, to be a full Turtle, from Baby Turtle). Though it took extra-long: it's Possible that Light came through Trapdoors, several Blocks from where the Turtle Egg, was; need to check out the Ref'd. article, above.

“The eggs hatch much faster if you are up during the night.” Speculation here, but I suspect it's as-likely to be the total (and /or # of nights) Time (again, and /or Nighttimes) one's awake at-night(-Especially), as Light-shining on, Turtle Eggs, to Hatch them. Yilante 11 /26 /18 8:12 p.m. 76.209.248.192 04:20, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok *Phew (sorry) * confirmed. Turtle Eggs DO Hatch without - any even remotely direct (5 Blocks away minimum - that's not even including "taxicab distance") Light - Glass not-either necessary.

That said, they Might "require night," as - Vaguely-enough - hinted, above in that quote. That is, it may be a choice between more-Phantoms (overall, and at least they don't attack the Turtle Eggs /Baby Turtles!) - but also more Baby Turtles - Hatched, due to and /or at night, of Sleeping in a Bed, or not. Yilante 12 /13 /18 12:10 p.m. 76.209.248.192 20:11, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Not Red Sand (or assumably SoulSand). That's for sure (at least at day and /or night without any-kind of direct exposure to Sunlight, of Light). Yilante 121 /16 /18 6:11 pm 76.209.248.192 02:12, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

When two turtles are fed seagrass and then mate, and one of them lays eggs, how long before the same two turtles can mate again? I've experienced some odd behavior in which one of the turtles just won't accept any more seagrass and just hangs around. Amatulic (talk) 22:52, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

This may be true. We still have a few unconfirmed, un-referenced - other than that it is the most-complex - Turtle behaviors, missing from the main Page, still. Yilante 11 /26 /18 8:09 pm 76.209.248.192 04:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Here's another (possible?) part of Turtles' Breeding - mating, really - puzzle. I can get a Few, Turtles to go into Love Mode - sometimes seemingly after just Breeding them - but others Might - dunno - have extended "can't-Breed," periods of time (Many others, even..?). Yilante 12 /5 /18 8:05 a.m. 76.209.248.192 16:04, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Ok, it seems they "Wait"-awhile, sometimes, before-actually Laying the Turtle Eggs. Like, indefinitely.

Part of how I confirmed this was they wouldn't-accept - multiples of them, even at a time - more Sea Grass (while a few Would). At first I wondered if this was because some were "designated Turtle Egg-layers," but then later realized that (even if I'd Name Tagged them for "Egg-layer," or not, I'm saying, though that's the way to confirm), they were still - maybe - "Waiting," to lay (them, the Eggs).

My guess is (since I had somewhat-limited Sand amid Water-also, in several Turtle enclosures), that they were "Waiting" to try-to find valid Sand, and /or the Player has to be within-Range, for them to both-initiate and-continue the Egg-laying. Until then, they "stay designated Egg-layers," I'll guess. Yilante 12 /26 /18 7:16 a.m. 76.209.248.192 15:17, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

I have two turtles and I've tried breeding them, but only one of them will accept the seagrass. The other one won't even follow if I'm holding seagrass. Would it have to do with being named? I don't see why it would. The unnamed turtle will eat and shows hearts. There is water and sand near them. – Unsigned comment added by 174.115.111.218 (talk) at 22:40, 11 July 2020‎ (UTC). Sign comments with ~~~~

I'm wondering if turtles that didn't originate purely in Survival mode exhibit this weirdness. Amatulic (talk) 23:46, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Aren’t baby turtles the smallest mob in the game? UltraUndo (talk) 21:09, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes. I used to think it was the tadpole, but the baby turtle is 0.12 blocks tall. Randy 12:56, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

The history section includes the addition of every turtle predator except the Bogged. CrockCraftMC (talk) 21:50, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

At the time turtle was introduced in 1.13, they indeed only spawn on sand blocks.
However, in Java Edition 1.16, the blocks they can spawn on has been changed from the sand block to blocks with the sand tag, which included sand and red sand at the time. I couldn't find it in the changelog, but there were a number of changes and bugfixes related to turtle eggs and we can see in the code that the turtle spawning condition has been changed to use this same logic accordingly.

In the current version, the sand tag also included suspicious sand. According to the history in the block tag, suspicious sand was added to this tag in 1.19.4 with 1.20 experiment (the version it was added), and 1.20 for non-experiment.

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For testing, I used superflat with dirt,sand;beach preset on peaceful and we should see some turtles after 20 seconds, or none after several minutes on the version and setup that didn't support the block. The sand is replaced with red_sand and suspicious_sand accordingly. For 1.19.4, I got suspicious_sand to work in the preset after turning on the 1.20 experiment first.

For red sand, I first verify that it didn't work on 1.13, then we can just use a rough manual binary search to pin-point the version it was changed, so the versions I tested are spread out accordingly, but includes the version it worked on and the version before that it didn't work. This process will miss changes that are introduced and reverted in quick succession, I don't know of an easy way to go through them sequentially.

• For tests in 1.13, 1.14.4, 1.15, and 1.15.2 (the version before 1.16), sand worked as expected, but red sand didn't.
• In 1.16, both sand and red sand worked.
• In 1.19.3 (the version before 1.19.4), there's no suspicious sand.
• In 1.19.4 (the version before 1.20) with 1.20 experiment, the suspicious sand also worked.
• In 1.20 (and I've also tested in 1.21.5), the suspicious sand still worked. I couldn't use the suspicious_sand in the preset, so I used dirt,glass;beach and fill -200 -63 -200 200 -63 200 with suscipious_sand instead.

WaterGenie3 (talk) 09:50, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

There's an unfortunate combination of off-by-1 issue and ambiguity with the spawning y level.

The potential turtle's y level must be < sea level + 4. I.e.

• They can spawn at y < 67 with the default sea level. The wording is already correct ("less than 4 blocks above sea level"), but the numbers are not ("from y level -64 to 67") unless it's meant to be exclude the bounds.
• So the block with the sand tag that they spawn on can be between y -64 and 65, inclusive, because with sand at 66, the turtle would be at 67 and fail.

With the way the sentence is worded, it is unclear whether the y level applies to the turtle or the sand block. WaterGenie3 (talk) 11:38, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

We have all the necessary information on the page but I do think that we would benefit from adding this information to a "Trivia" section, i.e. "Turtles drop bowls when struck by lightning as a reference to [...]"

I'm just not entirely sure what this behavior is actually a reference to in the base game, it's a really weird interaction. Does anyone have any insight? FutureThrone795 (talk) 23:36, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I am guessing that it is supposedly the lightning bolt burning the turtle's shell reducing it to a small piece shaped like a bowl. The thing that likely most people get confused with this mechanic is the crafting recipe for a bowl uses three wooden planks and getting wood from a turtle does not make sense. 245e (talk) 00:06, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

According to Spawn Egg#History, the spawn egg was renamed in Preview 1.21.30.22; I am unsure if the mob itself was renamed at a different time. 👁 Image
Sightnado ^{t | c} 03:20, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

It seems that entity.turtle.name has been Turtle since at least 1.19.30 (earliest Bedrock sample I can find). TheCaptainYaya (talk) 04:11, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

It appears that turtles have always been named just Turtle, even in beta 1.5.0.4; their item names were just misleading. 👁 Image
Sightnado ^{t | c} 15:58, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

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