Beal's eyed turtle

Amazing fact

Beal's eyed turtle usually has markings that look like eyes on the back of its head.

Naturalis Biodiversity Center

Beal's eyed turtle in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

Beal's eyed turtle usually has markings that look like eyes on the back of its head.

SourceNaturalis Biodiversity Center — Turtles of the World: Sacalia bealei

THE REAL WORLD

The real Beal's eyed turtle

Scientific name: Sacalia bealei
Japanese name: ジャノメイシガメ
Group: Amphibians and reptiles

Class: Reptilia
Order: Testudines
Family: Geoemydidae
Genus: Sacalia

Facts about the real animal.

It lives in southern China.

鳥羽水族館 — ジャノメイシガメ

Compared with the look-alike yotsume-ishigame turtle, it has fine black spots on the top of its head.

鳥羽水族館 — ジャノメイシガメ

The lines that spread out across its upper shell are broken up like dotted lines.

鳥羽水族館 — ジャノメイシガメ

How the Beal's eyed turtle lives

It is active at night. It eats crayfish and worms. In mountain streams, it favors slow, clear water. In the wet and mating seasons, males move over larger areas than females.

The University of Hong Kong University of Suffolk

Basic data

Range: Southern China

鳥羽水族館

Where it livesAsia Rivers and wetlands

Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.

Names around the world

日本語: ジャノメイシガメ
简体中文: 眼斑水龟
繁體中文: 眼斑水龜
Deutsch: Pfauenaugen-Wasserschildkröte
Italiano: Tartaruga ocellata di Beale
Русский: Сакалия

Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.

Sources and how we check

鳥羽水族館 — ジャノメイシガメChecked: 2026-11-04
The University of Hong Kong — Sacalia bealei (Gray, 1831) — Beale's TerrapinChecked: 2026-11-07
Naturalis Biodiversity Center — Turtles of the World: Sacalia bealeiChecked: 2026-11-07
University of Suffolk — Movement and space use patterns of the Beale's Eyed Turtle (Sacalia bealei) suggest sensitivity to environmental changes and poachingChecked: 2026-11-07

We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.

The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.

The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.

This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.

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