Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status

This is our 10th edition of an annotated checklist and atlas of all recognized taxa of the world’s modern turtle and tortoise fauna, documenting recent changes and controversies through mid-2025, and including all primary synonyms, updated from nine previous checklists. We provide an updated comprehensive listing of taxonomy and nomenclature, including type localities, type specimens, detailed distribution maps, as well as calculated Estimated Indigenous (Historical) Ranges, conservation status, and maximum known sex-based carapace lengths for all taxa. We strive to record the most recent justified taxonomic assignment of taxa in a hierarchical framework, providing detailed annotations, including alternative arrangements for a few taxa. We include current published and provisional IUCN Red List status assessments for all species, as well as current listings on CITES appendices and the USA Endangered Species Act. The diversity of turtles and tortoises in the world that has existed in modern times (since 1500 CE) and currently generally recognized as distinct and included in this checklist, now consists of 364 species. Of these, 60 are polytypic, representing 129 additional recognized subspecies (one unnamed), or 493 total taxa of modern chelonians, a 1.4% increase from 486 taxa in our previous checklist. Of these, 5 species and 5 subspecies (one unnamed), or 10 taxa (2.0%), are extinct. We also include a supplementary listing of 20 taxa of terrestrial chelonians that went extinct during the Holocene from ca. 10,000 BCE (ca. 12,000 ybp) to 1500 CE. As of the current IUCN 2025 Red List, 174 turtle species (62.8% of the 277 species formally Red-Listed) are officially regarded as globally Threatened (Critically Endangered [CR], Endangered [EN], or Vulnerable [VU]). We also record additional “in press” and other provisional Red List assessments by the IUCN SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group, allowing us to evaluate the overall current threat levels for all 364 species of turtles and tortoises. Of these, 196 (53.8%) are Threatened (CR, EN, or VU), a 7.1% increase from 183 in 2021; if we provisionally adjust for predicted threat rates of 29 Data Deficient (DD) species, then ca. 58.5% of all extant turtles are Threatened, up from 55.9% in 2021. These numbers and percentages of Threatened species have all increased since our last checklist. Turtles and tortoises are among the most threatened of the major vertebrate lineages on earth.