Reptilia · Squamata
Amblyodipsas concolorSmith, 1849
Kwazulu-Natal Purple-glossed Snake
Photograph by Wynand Uys, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A burrowing, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 850 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Atractaspididae › Amblyodipsas
- Grows to
- 850mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Fossorial
Longer than 78% of all species in Atractaspididae 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 200 to 1,280 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
34 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
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2021
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 850mm2 ft 9 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 185mm7.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 158.8g5.6 oz
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
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland
- Biome
- Montane Grasslands & Savannas
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1650m
- Range size
- 95,223km²
snakes, fossorial skinks (Marais 2022)
Feldman 2015
Bates et al. 2014
1000-1000 (Spawls et al. 2018), NSL-1650 (Bates et al. 2014)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Mixed
- Average clutch
- 11
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 10–12eggs
- Mean clutch
- 11eggs
oviparous (Feldman et al. 2015), vivparous (Branch 1998), mixed (Marais 2022)
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
12 (Marais 2005), 11 (Branch 1998), 10, 11 and 12 (Marais 2022, n = 3)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Smith
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1849
- Type locality
- South Africa
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.
18kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 159 g, the heaviest recorded for Kwazulu-Natal Purple-glossed 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 · greatest recorded
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — 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
Others in Atractaspididae
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). Amblyodipsas concolor. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/amblyodipsas-concolor
@misc{amblyodipsas_concolor_2026,
title = {Amblyodipsas concolor},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/amblyodipsas-concolor}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.