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Amphibians and reptiles

Chinese box turtle

Amazing fact

The yellow-margined box turtle has bright yellow lines behind its eyes along the sides of its face.

University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
Chinese box turtle in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The yellow-margined box turtle has bright yellow lines behind its eyes along the sides of its face.

SourceUniversity of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Cuora flavomarginata

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THE REAL WORLD

The real Chinese box turtle

Scientific name
Cuora flavomarginata
Japanese name
セマルハコガメ
Group
Amphibians and reptiles
Class
Reptilia
Order
Testudines
Family
Geoemydidae
Genus
Cuora
Facts about the real animal.
01

A turtle that lives in southern China, Taiwan, and on Japan's Ishigaki and Iriomote Islands.

鳥羽水族館 — セマルハコガメ
02

It has a dome-shaped shell.

鳥羽水族館 — セマルハコガメ
03

It can pull its legs and head inside its shell and become a closed “box.”

鳥羽水族館 — セマルハコガメ

How the Chinese box turtle lives

It is more active from spring through autumn. It eats snails, slugs and worms, as well as berries and leaves. In winter, it hibernates under logs or thick layers of leaves, among other places.

University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web

Basic data

Range
Southern China, Taiwan, and Ishigaki and Iriomote islands in Japan
鳥羽水族館

Where the Chinese box turtle has been recorded

World map with dots where the Chinese box turtle has been recorded
Each dot marks a place with observations or specimens shared on GBIF. Some records are of animals that strayed or were brought by people, so the dots are not always where the animal lives.

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesJapanAsiaForests

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

简体中文
黄缘盒龟
繁體中文
食蛇龜
Português (Brasil)
Cágado-comedor-de-serpente

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

Sources and how we check

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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