Reptilia · Squamata
Atractaspis bibroniiSmith, 1849
Mole Viper
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal, meat-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 700 mm nose to tail.
Also called Bibron’s Stiletto Snake, Southern or Bibron's Burrowing Asp.
Reptilia › Squamata › Atractaspididae › Atractaspis
- Grows to
- 700mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 23.1years
Longer than 62% 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
32 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 109, and Body mass (greatest) as 88.8 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2014
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 23.1years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 650mm2 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 700mm2 ft 4 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 175mm7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 88.76g3.1 oz
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 109g3.8 oz
700 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 450-700 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), Pietersen et al. 2021 (max SVL 650 mm in males, 645 mm in females; hatchlings 150 mm TL), Marais 2022 (adults average 30-40 cm, max 70 cm, hatchlings 150 mm), Spawls et al. 2023 (30-70 cm TL, hatchlings 20 cm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1600m
- Range size
- 5,090,054km²
mostly reptiles, also reptile eggs and nestling rodents (Pietersen et al. 2021), amphibians, mammals and reptiles (van Huyssteen 2023), rodents, shrews, skinks and skink eggs and amphisbaenians (Spawls et al. 2023)
van Huyssteen 2023
Murphy et al. 2003, Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Pietersen et al. 2021, van Huyssteen 2023, Marais 2022, Spawls et al. 2023
Fossorial (Bates et al. 2014, Pietersen et al. 2021 see also Wilkey and Terrell 2017), fossorial and terrestrial (van Huyssteen 2023, Marais 2022), semi fossorial (Trape 2023, as Atractaspis katangae and A. rostrata), terrestrial (Spawls et al. 2023)
NSL-1600 (Bates et al. 2014), near sea level (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–12eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
6-7 (O'Shea 2011), 3-7 (Marais 2005), 6-12 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), 3-7 (Branch 1998, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022), 4-7 but max=11 (Murphy et al. 2003), 3-8 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Atractaspis bibronii bibronii SMITH 1849 Atractaspis bibronii rostrata GÜNTHER 1868
- Described by
- Smith
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1849
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
8 ft 6 in × 8 ft 6 in × 5 ft 4 in(260 × 260 × 163 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 13 in (33 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 2 in (650 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 Mole Viper. 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.
11kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 89 g, the heaviest recorded for Mole Viper — 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — 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). Atractaspis bibronii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/atractaspis-bibronii
@misc{atractaspis_bibronii_2026,
title = {Atractaspis bibronii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/atractaspis-bibronii}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.