Adult female Beale’s Eyed Turtle, Sacalia bealei, from China. Note the yellow neck stripes. Photo by Cris Hagen.
Summary
Beale’s Eyed Turtle, Sacalia bealei (family Geoemydidae) is a small freshwater turtle species endemic to southeastern China. The species inhabits mountain streams with high vegetation cover, deep stream pools, abundant stone caves, high fruit abundance, and high benthic species diversity and abundance. The species has a diverse diet, consisting of plant material, fruits, insects, benthic algae, and carrion. The species typically occupies a small home range averaging 0.626 ha, and females exhibit a larger home range than males during the nesting season. Nesting occurs from the middle of April to the middle of June, mainly in May. Females lay one clutch of eggs per year, with an average clutch size of 2.2 eggs (range, 1-3). The hard-shelled eggs are elongate, with an average length of 45.5 mm, width of 23.2 mm, and weight of 14.8 g. The incubation period in the wild is ca. 85–108 days at incubation temperatures of ca. 17.5–29.6°C (average 25.1°C). Poaching, illegal trade, and habitat loss are major ongoing threats to wild S. bealei populations, and the species is extremely rare in the wild. Conservation measures for the species remain limited, but are urgently needed. A conservation action plan has recently been developed and needs to be increasingly implemented.
Distribution
China. Endemic to southeastern China, including the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan, and Guizhou, as well as Hong Kong.
Estimated historical indigenous distribution of Sacalia bealei in China. Yellow dots = museum and current and historical occurrence records of presumed native populations based on literature and online records (TTWG 2025); yellow star = recently estimated type locality for Cistuda bealei Gray 1831 (TTWG 2025); orange star = previously estimated type locality for Cistuda bealei Gray 1831 (Iverson and McCord 1992). Colored shading = estimated historical indigenous range. Distribution is based on fine-scaled GIS-defined level 12 HUCs (hydrologic unit compartments) constructed around localities and then adding HUCs that connect point localities in the same watershed or physiographic region, and similar habitats and elevations as verified HUCs, based on TTWG (2025) and adjusted based on subsequent data (TTWG, in prep.) and from the authors. Map by Chelonian Research Foundation.
None currently recognized; Sacalia quadriocellata was at times in the past considered a subspecies of S. bealei, but is now considered a separate species.
Conservation Status
IUCN 2026 Red List: Endangered (EN, A1d+2d [ver. 2.3]; 2000); TFTSG Provisional Red List: Critically Endangered (CR; 2011)
Last Updated on: 10 November 2026
Legal Status
CITES: Appendix II (2013); China Red List: Critically Endangered (2020); China: Class II State Key Protected Wild Animals of China (2021, wild populations)
Last Updated on: 10 November 2026
Citation
Lin, L., Fu, J., Chen, H.Q., and Shi, H.T. 2026. Sacalia bealei (Gray 1831) – Beale’s Eyed Turtle. In: Rhodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., van Dijk, P.P., Stanford, C.B., Goode, E.V., Buhlmann, K.A., and Mittermeier, R.A. (Eds.). Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises: A Compilation Project of the IUCN SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. Chelonian Research Monographs 5(20):146.1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.3854/crm.5.146.bealei.v1.2026.
Author Information
1Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology of Hainan Province, College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, China [[email protected]; [email protected], [email protected]]; 2College of Biological Science, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada [[email protected]]; #These authors contributed equally to this work; *Corresponding author
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