One of the first things that you should know about a painted turtle before getting one as a pet is how long it lives. As we all know getting a pet is a long time commitment and sometimes that long time can be a little longer than we expected. And painted turtles live a very long time compared to other animals.
Most painted turtles live between 20 and 30 years, but they can reach up to 40 years. But most painted turtles don’t live that long due to external factors.
External factors like predators, food scarcity, and unfavorable environment, can and will have a negative effect on the lifespan of a painted turtle, so as a result pet painted turtles tend to live longer than their wild counterparts. In this article, we are going to have a look at those factors, and a few more, and see how impactful they are. And we’ll start with one of the most important ones, food.
How Food Influences How Long a Painted Turtle Lives
Food is essential for every living creature, and painted turtles are no exception to this rule. But turtles can’t just eat any food there are a lot of things that are bad for them, and just a few that provide a lot of benefits, and depending on how much access they have to those food items will determine how long they will live, among other things.
Here is a quick overview of what painted turtles can eat and what they can’t eat.
Most fruits are good, but the ones that contain a lot of potassium are actually harmful to them and will make them sick, which won’t have a positive effect on their lifespan. The same thing can be said about citrus like lemons, oranges, grapefruit, etc.
A lot of vegetables are safe for painted turtles and will keep them healthy, but the ones that have high quantities of phosphorus are dangerous.
All types of meat are fine. Turtles prefer meat to be uncooked but that’s not the safest thing so, boiling it before giving it to your turtle is recommended.
No type of processed food is good for turtles, whether that’s salami, bread, cheese, or pasta of any kind.
In the wild turtles have access to some fruits, mostly berries, and some occasional wild vegetables, but they mostly rely on wild plants, which do contain some nutrients, but not as many as fruits and vegetables.
As for meat, painted turtles will try to catch fish, but they don’t succeed very often, so while fish is an important part of their diet they don’t usually eat as much as they would like. But this doesn’t mean that their diet lacks meat because they also eat small insects and earthworms, which are easier to catch than fish.
Overall, wild painted turtles seem to be far from what we would call a perfect diet that would help them live a long life. But that’s not really the case. Turtles don’t need to eat that much food, so they can afford to be somewhat picky, as they are not starving. If they manage to catch a small fish (the size of a finger), that fish can be enough meat for a month. The only real problem is that in most cases they don’t have access to most of the things that they need.
Pet painted turtles will usually have a way better diet than their wild counterparts, and this can easily add up to 5 or more years to the amount of time that they live. If you want to know how a good and balanced diet looks for a painted turtle you should check out this article: How Often Do Painted Turtles Eat and How Much Do They Eat? here you will find information about what to feed your painted turtle, how often and how much,
Now let’s move to the next factor that has the biggest effect on the lifespan of a painted turtle, after food, and that is predators.
How Predators Affect the Lifespan of a Painted Turtle
As you can imagine a turtle that is surrounded by predators won’t live for that long. In the wild most painted turtles don’t die due to old age, but are actually caught by a predator. And there are more predators than you might expect.
Here is a short list of some of the most common painted turtle predators:
- Raccoons
- Opossums
- Skunks
- Snakes
- Eagles
- Crocodiles
- Crows
- Dogs
- Cats
- Ants
As you can see there are a lot of them, and amongst them are even small insects like ants. So you can see why most turtles don’t reach the maximum of their lifespan. But turtles don’t just sit there and wait to be eaten, they do their best to defend themselves.
They hide in burrows, they hide underwater, they hide in their shells, and if they are attacked they fight back by scratching and biting. And all of those things will make any predator think twice before attacking, but there is one more thing that turtles can do that is even more efficient, and that is to grow bigger.
How the Size of a Painted Turtle Influences Its Lifespan
Most painted turtles will reach a size between 5 and 7 inches (10 and 18 centimeters), which is definitely not huge. But it is a size at which they can fight back against most predators, while still being able to hide from them.
Let me explain to you how much size matters for a turtle. On average a painted turtle will lay about 6 eggs. Out of the 6 baby turtles that will come out of those eggs only one has a good chance of reaching adulthood, and this is motley due to their small size.
Smaller turtles have more predators than bigger turtles, a crow for example won’t attack a full-grown painted turtle, because it can’t hurt it, but a smaller turtle is a perfectly good target.
The best example of a turtle that uses size to its full advantage is the Galapagos Giant Tortoise, which grew so big that there are no predators around that can hurt them. So they don’t have to worry about any danger, so they can lead a peaceful life, during which they most sleep and look for food and they can comfortably live up to 100 years.
How the Environment Affects How Long a Painted Turtle Lives
Painted turtles live in a lot of different environments, here is a picture showing areas where they live in the US and Canada.
So they live in a wide range of environments, and some of them are more pleasant than others.
Some of those areas are more prone to draughts, which are not good for the health of a turtle, while in other areas it rains more, which is great for turtles.
There are a lot of small things that can happen in the environment that can affect the lifespan of a turtle, some of them have minor effects like a draught, while things like a polluted lake will have massive effects.
On a more positive note, I would like to add that most turtle species, including painted turtles, will migrate if the area where they live becomes unsuitable, so even if their health gets affected by a sudden change, they will go and look for a better place to live.
Final Thoughts
If you want to get a pet painted turtle you should expect it to live somewhere between 30 and 40 years. While you can’t influence factors like genetics which play an important role, you can offer a painted turtle a good diet and safety, which will drastically increase its lifespan.
I hope this article answered all questions that you had about the lifespan of a painted turtle. If there is something else that you want to know you can always leave a comment in the comment section below and I will do my best to answer you as soon as possible.
Related Questions
Can turtles live up to 500 years? No, some turtles are able to live close to 200 years, but no known turtle has lived up to 500 years.
What is the oldest turtle? Adwaita is the name of the Aldabra tortoise that reached the age of 255 years. Adwaita died on 22 March 2006 at the age of 255 years, in Alipore Zoological Gardens, Kolkata, India.
How old is the oldest living turtle? At the moment the oldest living turtle in the world is a Seychelles giant tortoise that is 186 years old.
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