One emoji covers turtle, tortoise and terrapin: Turtle, U+1F422. Press Copy for it. CLDR does not file it under slow, which belongs to the sloth. Turtle emoji copy and paste brings turtle characters, text turtles like ~(:::)o and 14 combos.
Read the full guide
Slow finds a sloth, hare finds a fable
Search slow and Sloth and The slow lane answer, because CLDR, Unicode's search word list, gives the word to the sloth and not the turtle. Hare finds the fable, filed here as Perry Index 226, and kame finds the Japanese turtle twice. A bale is five turtles in one tap.
From Emoji 0.6 to a hieroglyph
Turtle carries Emoji 0.6, the oldest label on Unicode's list. Jellyfish, from Emoji 15.0, is the newest tile here, so an older phone may show a box for it. ~(:::)o is plain ASCII, and the hieroglyph needs a font that has the block.
Tips
One turtle emoji stands for 360 species. Sea turtle, by addition and Tortoise, by subtraction tell them apart.
γ and γ are tortoise shell brackets by their Unicode names, and ~γ:::γo puts a text turtle inside a pair.
ιΎ is turtle in one character, 16 strokes. Japan writes it δΊ in 11, and simplified Chinese ιΎ in 7.
Questions and answers
What does the turtle emoji mean?
A turtle, tortoise or terrapin: CLDR files π’ under all three and under animal. Slow belongs to the sloth alone. The sayings are combos here: The slow lane, Turtles all the way down, and the fable with the hare as Perry Index 226.
Is there a tortoise or sea turtle emoji?
No. There is one turtle emoji, and CLDR files it under turtle, tortoise and terrapin alike. Wikipedia counts 360 species, living and recently extinct, and lists seven sea turtles. The combos Sea turtle, by addition and Tortoise, by subtraction do the rest.
Is there a turtle symbol that is not an emoji?
Yes. ιΎ is the Chinese character for turtle, δΊ the Japanese form, and U+13189 is an Egyptian hieroglyph of a freshwater turtle. Unicode also has 26 characters with tortoise shell in their names: 16 brackets, γ and γ among them, and 10 characters already bracketed.
π¦BirdU+1F426. The other half of that sister group. Filed under ornithology. Emoji 0.6.
πCrocodileU+1F40A. A 2013 genome study cited by Wikipedia puts turtles closest to the crocodilians and the birds, as their likely sister group. CLDR files this one under zoo. Emoji 1.0.
π¦LizardU+1F98E. The only emoji CLDR files under reptile. The turtle, a reptile, is not filed there. Emoji 3.0.
π¦SauropodU+1F995. Unicode shelves the dinosaurs with the reptiles. Filed under brontosaurus, brachiosaurus and diplodocus. Emoji 5.0.
πSnakeU+1F40D. Two along from Turtle on Unicode's reptile shelf. Filed under serpent. Emoji 0.6.
π¦T-RexU+1F996. Last on the reptile shelf, six places after Turtle. Filed under dinosaur and Tyrannosaurus. Emoji 5.0.
π’TurtleU+1F422. Four search words in CLDR: animal, terrapin, tortoise and turtle. One emoji for an order Wikipedia counts at 360 living and recently extinct species. Emoji 0.6.
Show all 53 turtle items (46 more)
The slow lane, according to CLDR 4
πChequered flagU+1F3C1. The only emoji filed under finish. Also under race and win. Emoji 0.6.
πRabbitU+1F407. No emoji is filed under hare, so Rabbit runs in the fable. Filed under bunny and pet. Emoji 1.0.
π¦₯SlothU+1F9A5. The only emoji CLDR files under slow, and the only one under lazy. The turtle is filed under neither. Emoji 12.0.
πSnailU+1F40C. Filed under escargot, garden and slug. Not under slow either. Emoji 0.6.
Sea, pond and dry land 7
ποΈBeach with umbrellaU+1F3D6 U+FE0F. Where female sea turtles come ashore in the nesting season, says Wikipedia. The umbrella is not theirs. Emoji 0.7.
ποΈDesertU+1F3DC U+FE0F. Dry land. In Britain, says Wikipedia, turtle is used for the sea-going kind, and the land-dwelling ones are tortoises. Emoji 0.7.
π₯EggU+1F95A. Filed under breakfast and food. Sea turtles leave theirs on sandy beaches, says Wikipedia. Emoji 3.0.
πͺΌJellyfishU+1FABC. What leatherbacks follow through the day, says Wikipedia. New enough to check where it is going. Emoji 15.0.
βοΈSunU+2600 U+FE0F. By Wikipedia, small pond turtles manage their body heat by climbing out to bask. Emoji 0.6.
πWater waveU+1F30A. For the seven species of sea turtle Wikipedia lists. Filed under ocean, surf and wave. Emoji 0.6.
πͺ΅WoodU+1FAB5. The only emoji CLDR files under log. Also under lumber and timber. Emoji 13.0.
Shell, shield and the world on its back 5
π¦΄BoneU+1F9B4. A turtle shell is made mostly of bone, says Wikipedia. The scales on top are keratin, which is also what hair, horns and claws are made of. Emoji 11.0.
πElephantU+1F418. In the 1877 drawing Wikipedia shows, the world sits on four elephants and the elephants stand on a turtle. Emoji 0.6.
πGlobe showing Asia-AustraliaU+1F30F. For the World Turtle, a giant turtle supporting the world. Wikipedia finds it in Hinduism, Chinese mythology and the Americas. Emoji 0.6.
π‘οΈShieldU+1F6E1 U+FE0F. For the testudo, the tortoise formation of the Roman legions: a shield wall, by Wikipedia. Filed under shield and weapon. Emoji 0.7.
πSpiral shellU+1F41A. The only emoji CLDR files under shell. It is also filed under conch, so it is somebody else's. Emoji 0.6.
Turtles that are not emoji 7
δΊKame, the Japanese turtleU+4E80 CJK unified ideograph-4E80. The newer Japanese form of the same character, read kame. Unihan counts 11 strokes.
βΏKangxi radical turtleU+2FD4 Kangxi radical turtle. Radical 213 of 214 as a character of its own. Dragon is just before it and Flute, the last, just after.
γLeft tortoise shell bracketU+3014 Left tortoise shell bracket. One of 26 characters with tortoise shell in their Unicode names: 16 brackets, and 10 letters and characters that arrive already bracketed.
γRight tortoise shell bracketU+3015 Right tortoise shell bracket. The other end. In Unicode since version 1.1, like its partner.
πTurtle hieroglyphU+13189 Egyptian hieroglyph I002. Unicode's notes describe it as a freshwater turtle, the classifier for turtle. Added in Unicode 5.2: an empty box means your font lacks it.
ιΎTurtle in seven strokesU+9F9F CJK unified ideograph-9F9F. The simplified Chinese form. Unihan counts 7 strokes, down from 16.
ιΎTurtle, the 16-stroke characterU+9F9C CJK unified ideograph-9F9C. Turtle or tortoise, by Unihan, read gui in Mandarin. It is Kangxi radical 213, one of only two radicals with 16 strokes, says Wikipedia.
One-line text turtles 7
(:::)Text turtle with everything pulled in
γπ’γTurtle in tortoise shell brackets
π’ Β· Β· Β· π’ Β· Β· Β· π’Divider: three turtles and dots
~(:::)oText turtle in plain ASCII, heading right
~γ:::γoText turtle in real tortoise shell brackets
~(:::)o . . . . . . πText turtle, some way from the finish
o(:::)~Text turtle heading left
Turtle in Japanese and Chinese 2
γ«γ‘Turtle in Japanese (kame): the reading of δΊ, written in katakana
ηιΎTurtle in Chinese (wugui). The second character is ιΎ, the 16-stroke turtle
Turtle combos 14
π’π’π’π’π’A baleTurtle 5 times. Wiktionary's collective noun for a group of turtles. Five in one tap.
π’πBlack Warrior of the NorthTurtle, then snake. The northern one of the Four Symbols, which by Wikipedia belong to the Chinese constellations. It is usually drawn as a tortoise with a snake wound round it.
π’πHatched around 1832Turtle, then birthday cake. Jonathan, a giant tortoise, by Wikipedia's estimate. He reached Saint Helena in 1882, shipped from the Seychelles.
π’πͺΌLeatherback lunchTurtle, then jellyfish. The leatherback is the largest living turtle, says Wikipedia, and follows its jellyfish prey through the day.
πͺ΅π’π’βοΈLog, occupiedWood, then turtle 2 times, then sun. Pond turtles crawl out of the water to bask in the sun, says Wikipedia.
ππ’ποΈπ₯π₯Nesting seasonWater wave, then turtle, then beach with umbrella, then egg 2 times. By Wikipedia the females leave the sea to dig their nests in beach sand.
ππ’π₯Oracle bonesOx, then turtle, then fire. Ox shoulder blade and turtle plastron, heated for divination in Late Shang China, by Wikipedia. With the turtle half the word is plastromancy.
π’ππPerry Index 226Turtle, then rabbit, then chequered flag. The Tortoise and the Hare, one of Aesop's Fables, under its number in the Perry Index. Rabbit stands in for the hare.
π’πSea turtle, by additionTurtle, then water wave. There is no sea turtle emoji. Wikipedia lists seven living species: green, loggerhead, leatherback, hawksbill, flatback, olive ridley and Kemp's ridley.
π’ππ¦₯The slow laneTurtle, then snail, then sloth. Only Sloth is filed under slow. The other two are here on reputation.
π‘οΈπ‘οΈπ‘οΈπ’TestudoShield 3 times, then turtle. The tortoise formation of the Roman legions, a wall of shields. Testudo is the Latin Wiktionary gives for turtle.
π’ποΈTortoise, by subtractionTurtle, then desert. Same emoji, no water. CLDR already files Turtle under tortoise.
ππ’π’π’π’Turtles all the way downGlobe showing Asia-Australia, then turtle 4 times. The saying, by Wikipedia, has the world resting on a turtle, that turtle on a bigger one, and so on without end. Four fit here. The rest are implied.
πππ’World TurtleGlobe showing Asia-Australia, then elephant, then turtle. Top to bottom, as in the 1877 drawing Wikipedia shows: world, elephants, turtle.
How this list was compiled: Built by script on 2026-09-19, not typed by hand. The 23 emoji, their names, code points and Emoji version numbers come from emoji-test.txt, version 18.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/emoji/emoji-test.txt); names are the CLDR short names printed in that file, in sentence case. Turtle is U+1F422, the only entry of that file with turtle, tortoise or terrapin in its name, printed after crocodile and before lizard in the animal-reptile subgroup, which also holds snake, dragon face, dragon, sauropod and T-Rex. U+1F400 to U+1F43E, the turtle among them, have age 6.0 in DerivedAge.txt. The search words are from the CLDR English annotations (https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr/blob/main/common/annotations/en.xml and https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr/blob/main/common/annotationsDerived/en.xml, main branch). CLDR files turtle under animal, terrapin, tortoise and turtle, and it is the only emoji under the last three; sloth is the only emoji under slow and under lazy, lizard the only one under reptile, spiral shell the only one under shell, wood the only one under log and chequered flag the only one under finish; and no emoji is filed under hare, pond or basking. Every character that is not an emoji was checked against UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt), and a note that names a character uses its name from that file. The definitions and readings of U+9F9C, U+4E80 and U+9F9F (turtle or tortoise; Mandarin gui; Japanese kame), their stroke counts of 16, 11 and 7 and their variant links are from Unihan_Readings.txt, Unihan_IRGSources.txt and Unihan_Variants.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Unihan.zip); that U+2FD4 is Kangxi radical 213 of 214, between Dragon and Flute, is from CJKRadicals.txt and NamesList.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/); that U+13189 is a freshwater turtle and the classifier for turtle is from Unikemet.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Unikemet.txt) and NamesList.txt, and its age, Unicode 5.2, from DerivedAge.txt. UnicodeData.txt 18.0.0 has 26 characters with TORTOISE SHELL in their names, 16 of them brackets and 10 of them bracketed letters and ideographs, and five with TURTLE. Wikipedia, Turtle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle): 360 living and recently extinct species; the shell made mostly of bone and developed mainly from the ribs, with scales of keratin; the British use of turtle for sea turtles as opposed to terrapins and tortoises; the 2013 genome study placing turtles closest, it seems, to the branch that holds birds and crocodilians; the leatherback as the largest living species; small pond turtles basking in the sun. Wikipedia, Sea turtle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_turtle): the seven existing species, and females coming ashore to lay eggs on sandy beaches. Wikipedia, Leatherback sea turtle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherback_sea_turtle): leatherbacks spend the whole day trailing the jellyfish they eat. Wikipedia, The Tortoise and the Hare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare): one of Aesop's Fables, number 226 in the Perry Index. Wikipedia, Turtles all the way down (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down): the infinite stack of increasingly larger turtles. Wikipedia, World Turtle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle): the mytheme, where it occurs, and the 1877 drawing with four elephants. Wikipedia, Black Turtle-Snake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Turtle-Snake): one of the Four Symbols, a turtle, or a tortoise, with a snake wound round it, also titled Black Warrior of the North. Wikipedia, Oracle bone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone): ox scapula and turtle plastron used in pyromancy in the Late Shang period; plastromancy. Wikipedia, Testudo formation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testudo_formation): the tortoise formation, a shield wall of the Roman legions. Wikipedia, Radical 213 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_213): one of only two Kangxi radicals of 16 strokes, and the Korean reading geobuk. Wikipedia, Jonathan (tortoise) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_(tortoise)): hatched around 1832, taken from the Seychelles to Saint Helena in 1882. The word turtle in Japanese and Mandarin, and the Latin testudo, are from the translations table of Wiktionary's entry turtle (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/turtle); bale as the collective noun for turtles is from Wiktionary's entry bale (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bale). The 7 characters, the 7 one-line drawings, the 2 words and the 14 combos are this site's own choice, the drawings are our own, and the combo names are our own. All sources were checked on 2026-09-19. Licence: own work: the selection, the combo names, the text drawings and the notes are ours. Emoji names, code points and search words are Unicode and CLDR data, and the Han definitions are Unihan data, used under the Unicode License v3 (https://www.unicode.org/license.txt). Facts from Wikipedia and Wiktionary are restated in our own words and credited in the source line.