Reptilia · Squamata
Achalinus dehuaensisLi, Wu, Xu, Zhu, Ren, Guo, Dong, 2021
Dehua odd–scaled snake
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 688 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Xenodermidae › Achalinus
- Grows to
- 688mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 83% of all species in Xenodermidae anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 177.9 to 870 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
28 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Brown, Yellow
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 265mm10.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 688mm2 ft 3 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 314.5mm12.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 8.87g0.31 oz
Li et al. 2021 (max 265 mm, male with incomplete tail; 2 females 251 & 245 mm, 316 and 313 mm total length; max total length 343 mm with 90 mm tail, a male), Ha et al. 2022 report max SVL of 265 mm and total length of 688 mm - the total length sounds unreasonable for the svl and the data I have, Wang et al. 2023 (female standard length [probably total length, unsure] 313~316 mm), Wang et al. 2023 (max total length 688 mm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 455m
earthworms (Wang et al. 2023)
Wang et al. 2023
leaf litter (Li et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Li, Wu, Xu, Zhu, Ren, Guo, Dong
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 2021
- Type locality
- China
Keeping one
3 ft 6 in × 3 ft 6 in × 2 ft 2 in(106 × 106 × 66 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 10.5 in (265 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Dehua odd–scaled snake. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 9 g, the heaviest recorded for Dehua odd–scaled snake — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — Smallest clutch recorded
- — Largest clutch recorded
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Sex decided by
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Xenodermidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Achalinus dehuaensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/achalinus-dehuaensis
@misc{achalinus_dehuaensis_2026,
title = {Achalinus dehuaensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/achalinus-dehuaensis}
}Sources
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.