How long do turtles live? Pet, sea turtle and giant tortoise lifespans

Care guides promise pet turtles decades and NOAA estimates sea turtles live 30 to 80 years or more, yet the median pet chelonian that died in a sample of UK vet records was 7.3 years old, and the oldest known land animal, a giant tortoise named Jonathan, is about 194.

How long a turtle lives depends mainly on what kind of turtle it is. The Merck Veterinary Manual gives pet eastern box turtles an average of 25 to 50 years in captivity. NOAA Fisheries estimates that sea turtles live from at least 30 years (Kemp’s ridley) to 70 or 80 years or more (green and loggerhead turtles). Giant tortoises live longest: Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise on St Helena, is listed by Guinness World Records at 194 years in 2026, an age estimated from old records rather than known from a birth date.

Real pets often fall far short of those figures. In UK veterinary records of 178 pet chelonians (mostly tortoises) whose age at death was known, the median age at death was 7.32 years. Most turtle ages are also estimates, because a turtle’s age is hard to read from its body and few have been followed from hatching to death.

Explain it like I’m busy:

• Pet turtles and tortoises can live for decades (eastern box turtle: 25 to 50 years in captivity), but the median pet in UK vet records died at about 7 years.
• Sea turtles: NOAA estimates at least 30 years for the smallest species and 70 to 80 or more for greens and loggerheads.
• Giant tortoises pass 150 years; Jonathan, at about 194, is the oldest known living land animal.

Key facts about turtle lifespan

• Pet chelonians, measured: median age at death 7.32 years (middle half 2.50 to 15.14 years; range 0 to 113.45) among 178 deaths with a recorded age, in a random sample of 2,040 chelonians under UK primary veterinary care in 2019 (Hornby and colleagues, Royal Veterinary College, PLOS ONE, 2025).
• Pet guidance: eastern box turtle 25 to 50 years and leopard tortoise 50+ years on average in captivity; “some aquatic turtles may live for 70 years” and some tortoises have survived up to 150 (Merck Veterinary Manual, pet owner version).
• Sea turtles, estimated: Kemp’s ridley at least 30 years, olive ridley 30 to 50, leatherback 45 to 50 or more, hawksbill 50 to 60, green 70 or more, loggerhead up to 80 or more. NOAA calls every one of these lifespans unknown or unconfirmed.
• Oldest known: Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, about 194 years in 2026, based on his arrival on St Helena as a full-grown adult in 1882 (Guinness World Records). He also holds the Guinness title for oldest chelonian ever.
• Slow ageing: about 75% of 52 turtle and tortoise species in zoos and aquariums showed slow or negligible senescence, meaning their risk of dying rose little or not at all with age (da Silva and colleagues, Science, 2022).
• Age is hard to read: in a review of 145 studies that counted shell growth rings, only 4 case studies had enough data to show that a consistent number of rings forms each year (Wilson and colleagues, Herpetologica, 2003).

Turtle lifespan by species at a glance

Sources: Hornby et al. (2025) for UK vet records; Merck Veterinary Manual, pet owner version (Divers, updated June 2026) for box turtle guidance; NOAA Fisheries species pages for sea turtles (the loggerhead page gives “estimated to be 70 years or more” in its summary and “up to 80 years or more” in its text, so both are shown); AnAge Build 15 for sliders, box turtles, loggerheads and giant tortoises; Congdon et al. (2001, 2003) for Blanding’s and painted turtles; Guinness World Records for Jonathan. “Oldest documented” ages for wild turtles are minimum ages of marked animals, not proof of maximum lifespan.

What these numbers mean: a pet that can outlast a mortgage

A box turtle that lives the 25 to 50 years Merck gives it would outlast a 25-year mortgage and could outlast two. A 10-year-old given a hatchling could still be caring for it at 35, or at 60.

The comparison breaks down in one direction. A mortgage ends on a fixed date, and a turtle’s life does not. In the UK vet records, half of the pets that died had not reached 7.3 years, and a quarter had not reached 2.5. The long figures in care guides describe what the species can reach, while vet records count every animal that died, including the many that died young.

How scientists know how old a turtle is

Shell rings: a rough guide at best

Many turtles lay down visible rings on the scutes, the horny plates that cover the shell. The Merck Veterinary Manual says the way scutes enlarge can in some cases help determine an animal’s age. Counting rings as years is far less reliable than it looks.

Dawn Wilson and colleagues surveyed 145 papers that used scute rings to estimate turtle ages. Of 49 case studies that tested the method, 8 found it unreliable, and most of the rest found it worked only for juveniles or up to sexual maturity. Only 4 case studies had enough data to show that a consistent number of rings was added each year. The authors concluded there is no justification for using rings to age many species, unless the counts are first checked against turtles of known age.

Marking wild turtles and finding them again

The most direct way to learn how long wild turtles live is to mark them and keep catching them for decades. On the University of Michigan’s E.S. George Reserve, Congdon and colleagues studied painted turtles for 38 of 50 years and Blanding’s turtles for 35 of 47 years. Their painted turtles ranged from 9 to 61 years old, and some Blanding’s turtles passed 75.

Those ages are minimums. A turtle first marked as an adult was already some unknown number of years old, and the study ends before the oldest animals die. That is why the best-studied wild turtles still have no firm maximum lifespan.

Vet and zoo records

For pets, the largest data set comes from VetCompass, a Royal Veterinary College programme that collects anonymised UK clinic records. Hornby and colleagues reviewed a random 2,040 of the 4,432 chelonians in the system during 2019. Of these, 202 died, and 178 of the deaths had an age recorded. The median was 7.32 years.

The authors call that median concerning but warn it may be too low. Older tortoises kept outdoors may never be taken to a vet, and the paper notes that tortoises are hard to age, so recorded ages may be unreliable and are best read as minimums. Zoo records fill in the upper end: the AnAge longevity database lists 152 years for an Aldabra giant tortoise that died in captivity after being caught as an adult, which it says was probably around 180 years old.

Jonathan: an age built from history

Nobody recorded Jonathan’s hatching. He was brought to St Helena from the Seychelles in 1882, fully grown, and a photograph taken between 1882 and 1886 shows him as an adult in the grounds of Plantation House, the governor’s residence. Guinness counts a fully mature tortoise as at least 50 years old, which puts his hatching at about 1832 (1882 − 50 = 1832) and his age at about 194 in 2026. Guinness calls this a conservative estimate, so he may be older.

He is alive. After a false online report of his death in April 2026, the St Helena Government said he was alive and well. Guinness notes that he is almost blind from cataracts and has lost his sense of smell, so he is hand-fed once a week. He took the record for oldest chelonian ever from Tu’i Malila, a radiated tortoise said to have been given to Tonga’s royal family by Captain Cook around 1777, which died in 1965 aged at least 188. AnAge describes that older claim as unverified.

Do turtles age? What the 2022 studies found

Turtles have a reputation for not ageing. Two papers published together in Science in June 2022 tested it, and the answer is “many age very slowly, some barely at all, and none are immortal”.

Biologists measure ageing, or senescence, as the rise in the yearly risk of dying as an animal gets older. In people that rise is steep. David Miller, a Penn State wildlife ecologist and senior author of one paper, gave this comparison in the university’s release: for adult women in the United States, the yearly risk of dying is about 1 in 2,500 at age 10 and about 1 in 24 at age 80, based on Social Security actuarial tables. Negligible ageing would mean a turtle with a 1% yearly risk at age 10 still has a 1% risk at 100.

Da Silva and colleagues at the University of Southern Denmark analysed turtles and tortoises living in zoos and aquariums. About 75% of 52 species showed slow or negligible senescence, and about 80% aged more slowly than modern humans. Heavier species tended to have longer adult life expectancy. The team also reported that turtles and tortoises may slow their senescence when their living conditions improve.

The second paper, led by Beth Reinke of Northeastern Illinois University with 113 co-authors, used mark-recapture data from 107 wild populations of 77 reptile and amphibian species. Turtles stood out for low ageing rates and long lives for their size, and some turtle species showed negligible ageing. Hard shells seemed to help: the team found the strongest support in turtles for the idea that physical protection lets animals evolve slower ageing.

“It sounds dramatic to say that they don’t age at all, but basically their likelihood of dying does not change with age once they’re past reproduction.” Beth Reinke, Northeastern Illinois University, in the Penn State news release (23 June 2022)

There is one important counterexample. Warner and colleagues followed a wild population of painted turtles for more than 20 years and found that both survival and egg hatching success declined in older females. Their 2016 paper in PNAS was titled “Decades of field data reveal that turtles senesce in the wild”. Congdon’s Michigan painted turtles, by contrast, showed no detectable decline. Slow ageing is common in turtles, but it varies by species and population, and it is a pattern in death rates, not a sign that any individual turtle stops wearing out.

What changes the answer

Species and size. Small aquatic turtles and box turtles are measured in decades, giant tortoises in centuries. In the zoo data, heavier species tended to live longer as adults.

Wild or captive. Captivity removes predators and food shortages, and the 2022 zoo study found signs that better conditions can slow senescence. Poor care can do the opposite.

Care and accidents in pets. In the VetCompass records, the cause of 44.55% of deaths was not diagnosed, and dog bites were the commonest diagnosed cause (5.45%), followed by anorexia, meaning loss of appetite (3.96%). Nearly half of the deaths (94 of 202) were euthanasia. The commonest recorded health problems, overgrown beaks and nails and shell abnormalities, are often linked to inappropriate husbandry, the authors write. The Merck Veterinary Manual names secondary nutritional hyperparathyroidism, a metabolic bone disease caused by a diet with the wrong calcium-to-phosphorus balance, too little vitamin D₃ or poor husbandry such as a lack of ultraviolet-B light and temperature control, as the most common bone disease of pet reptiles, and links respiratory infections to unsuitable temperatures, dirty conditions and vitamin A deficiency.

How age was recorded. Pet ages in vet records may be unreliable, wild ages are minimums, and the oldest records rest on historical documents. Each kind of evidence leans in a different direction.

Sea turtles: decades before they even breed

Sea turtles take a long time to grow up. NOAA Fisheries gives female green turtles 25 to 35 years to reach maturity and female loggerheads about 35. Kemp’s ridleys mature at about 13 years and olive ridleys at around 14. Leatherbacks grow fastest, though NOAA says estimates of their age at maturity range from 9 to 20 years.

That makes the lifespan estimates hard to pin down. A female green turtle nesting this year may have hatched before 2000, and no one has tracked a wild sea turtle from the beach where it hatched to its death. NOAA’s own species pages describe each lifespan as unknown, with life expectancy unconfirmed for the hawksbill.

How turtles compare with other pets

Turtles sit at the long end of the pet range. The same VetCompass research group found that pet hamsters died at a median 1.75 years, as we explained in how long hamsters live. Merck’s captive-reptile table gives bearded dragons 5 to 10 years, against 25 to 50 for the eastern box turtle; our guide to how long bearded dragons live looks at the records for that species. For tortoises among the longest-lived animals of all, see the world’s longest-living animals.

Why it matters to you

A turtle or tortoise can be a commitment of several decades, and a giant tortoise can outlive its owner. If you are thinking of buying one, plan for the species’ full potential lifespan, and for who would care for it after you.

The vet records suggest many pets do not get close to that potential. Questions about diet, lighting, heating and housing for a particular species belong with a vet who treats reptiles. This article explains lifespan evidence and is not a care guide; for feeding, our page on what turtles eat covers diets in the wild and in captivity.

“But wait…” can’t you just count the rings on the shell?

Only roughly, and mainly in young turtles. Rings record periods of growth, not calendar years, and growth slows after maturity, so rings crowd together or wear away. The 2003 review found that only 4 case studies had enough data to show rings form at a steady yearly rate. For an adult turtle of unknown history, a vet can give a broad estimate, but no ring count will give you a reliable age.

Related questions

How long do red-eared sliders live? The AnAge database lists up to 30 years in the wild and a captive record of 41.3 years. We found no vet-manual average for the species.

How long do box turtles live? Merck gives eastern box turtles an average of 25 to 50 years in captivity. In a long-term Missouri study, eight female three-toed box turtles over 60 years old were found carrying eggs, the oldest estimated at 65 to 74 years.

How long do sea turtles live? NOAA estimates at least 30 years for Kemp’s ridley and 70 to 80 years or more for green and loggerhead turtles, with every figure still unconfirmed.

Do tortoises live longer than turtles? The giant tortoises do: the oldest documented chelonians are all tortoises. Small pet tortoises fall within the same decades-long range as many turtles.

In one sentence

Turtles can live from a few decades to nearly two centuries depending on the species, with sea turtles estimated at 30 to 80-plus years and giant tortoises such as 194-year-old Jonathan at the top, but many pets die far younger and most turtle ages remain estimates.

Read next

• What do turtles eat? Turtle diet facts
• The world’s longest-living animals
• How long do bearded dragons live? Pet lifespan, wild dragons and the oldest on record

Sources

1. Hornby JM, Hedley J, Brodbelt DC, Church DB, O’Neill DG (2025). Demography, commonly recorded disorders and mortality in chelonia under UK primary veterinary care: a VetCompass study. PLOS ONE 20(4): e0321038. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0321038; full text, PMC11981187.
2. Divers SJ. Selecting a reptile (updated June 2026), Description and physical characteristics of reptiles (updated September 2024) and Disorders and diseases of reptiles (updated June 2026). Merck Veterinary Manual, pet owner version.
3. NOAA Fisheries species pages: green turtle, loggerhead turtle, leatherback turtle, hawksbill turtle, Kemp’s ridley turtle, olive ridley turtle (accessed 14 November 2026).
4. Guinness World Records. Oldest land animal (living); 190-year-old Jonathan becomes world’s oldest tortoise ever (January 2022); Jonathan the tortoise is NOT dead (2 April 2026).
5. da Silva R, Conde DA, Baudisch A, Colchero F (2022). Slow and negligible senescence among testudines challenges evolutionary theories of senescence. Science 376(6600): 1466–1470. doi:10.1126/science.abl7811.
6. Reinke BA, Cayuela H, Janzen FJ, et al. (2022). Diverse aging rates in ectothermic tetrapods provide insights for the evolution of aging and longevity. Science 376(6600): 1459–1466. doi:10.1126/science.abm0151.
7. LaJeunesse S (2022). Secrets of reptile and amphibian aging revealed. Penn State News, 23 June 2022.
8. Warner DA, Miller DAW, Bronikowski AM, Janzen FJ (2016). Decades of field data reveal that turtles senesce in the wild. PNAS 113(23): 6502–6507. doi:10.1073/pnas.1600035113.
9. Congdon JD, Nagle RD, Kinney OM, van Loben Sels RC (2001). Hypotheses of aging in a long-lived vertebrate, Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii). Experimental Gerontology 36: 813–827. doi:10.1016/s0531-5565(00)00242-4.
10. Congdon JD, Nagle RD, Kinney OM, van Loben Sels RC, Quinter T, Tinkle DW (2003). Testing hypotheses of aging in long-lived painted turtles (Chrysemys picta). Experimental Gerontology 38: 765–772. doi:10.1016/s0531-5565(03)00106-2.
11. Miller JK (2001). Escaping senescence: demographic data from the three-toed box turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis). Experimental Gerontology 36: 829–832. doi:10.1016/s0531-5565(00)00243-6.
12. Wilson DS, Tracy CR, Tracy CR (2003). Estimating age of turtles from growth rings: a critical evaluation of the technique. Herpetologica 59(2): 178–194. doi:10.1655/0018-0831(2003)059[0178:EAOTFG]2.0.CO;2.
13. AnAge: The Animal Ageing and Longevity Database (Build 15). Entries for Trachemys scripta, Terrapene carolina, Caretta caretta, Aldabrachelys gigantea, Chelonoidis nigra and Astrochelys radiata.

Disclosure: This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. The hatching-year subtraction and the mortgage and age comparisons are SciQuest calculations; the graphic is a SciQuest original drawn from the listed values. The Reinke paper and the Wilson review were read as abstracts, release text and abstract summaries rather than full papers, and the 2022 Science paper by da Silva and colleagues as its abstract. This article is general information, not veterinary advice. Spotted an error? See our corrections policy.