Reptilia · Squamata
Anilius scytaleLinnaeus, 1758
Coral Cylinder Snakes
Photograph by Rafael Bernhard, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 120 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Aniliidae › Anilius
- Grows to
- 1200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
What is known
32 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
- 2013
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black
- Pattern on the back
- Banded
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 869mm2 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1200mm3 ft 11 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 260.1g9.2 oz
1200 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Cabral et al. 2022 (max Total length 904 mm, Max SVL: 869 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
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Savanna, Wetlands
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 30–700m
- Range size
- 7,903,854km²
carnivore (see Pinto‐Coelho et al. 2021), amphisbaenids, snakes, and caecilians (Rivas et al. 2023d), a snake (Turci and Bernarde 2022)
Active (Glaudas et al. 2019)
(O'Shea 2018)/diurnal (da Frota et al. 2021, n = 1), "Martins and Oliveira (1998) also mention that A. scytale is nocturnal, but can become diurnal under certain circumstances (e.g., flooding of underground galleries, search for food, etc.)." (Starace et al. 2021), "primarily nocturnal, but it is also reported active during the day" (Rivas et al. 2023d)
Fossorial&Terrestrial (O'Shea 2018, Rivas et al. 2023d), fossorial (Starace et al. 2021)
30-700 (O'Shea 2018), lowland areas (Murphy et al. 2003), 50-600 (Señaris & Rojas-Runjaic 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 11
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 7–15eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
up to 15 (Murphy et al. 2003), 7-15 (O'Shea 2018)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Anilius scytale phelpsorum ROZE 1958 Anilius scytale scytale (LINNAEUS 1758)
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Indiis
Keeping one
11 ft 5 in × 11 ft 5 in × 7 ft 2 in(348 × 348 × 217 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 17 in (44 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 2 ft 10 in (869 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 Coral Cylinder Snakes. 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.
27kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 260 g, the heaviest recorded for Coral Cylinder Snakes — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Pupil
- — 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
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). Anilius scytale. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anilius-scytale
@misc{anilius_scytale_2026,
title = {Anilius scytale},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anilius-scytale}
}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.