Reptilia · Squamata
Atractaspis engaddensisHaas, 1950
Israeli Mole Viper
Photograph by PyramidsFC, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
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A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 845 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Atractaspididae › Atractaspis
- Grows to
- 845mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 14.1years
Longer than 76% 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
37 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 14.1years
at least 14 years in the wild (Bar et al. 2021)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 796mm2 ft 7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 683mm2 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 845mm2 ft 9 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 260mm10 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 285mm11 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 178.8g6.3 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 62.4g2.2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 4g0.14 oz
650 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 600-800 (Eid 2021), 285-845 mm total length weight 4-110 g (Bar et al. 2021), 153.2 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History; in which female SVL 682.75 mm, n = 4, Nov2023, 1 neonate 260 mm SVL, 285 mm TL, max SVL 796), Spawls et al. 2023 (40 to about 90 cm)
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
- Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2140m
- Range size
- 304,557km²
"snakes, lizards and amphibians" (Eid 2021), mostly lizards (Bar et al. 2021), vertebrates (Pinho et al. 2023b)
active (Bar et al. 2021)
Scharf et al. 2015, Eid 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Pinho et al. 2023b, Spawls et al. 2023
Fossorial (O'Shea 2018, Eid 2021), terrestrial (Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
305 bsl to 2135 asl (O'Shea 2018), 200-300 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.5eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
mean 2.5 (Scharf et al. 2015), 1-5 (Bar et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Haas
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1950
- Type locality
- Israel
Keeping one
10 ft 5 in × 10 ft 5 in × 6 ft 6 in(318 × 318 × 199 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 2 ft 7 in (796 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 Israeli 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.
20kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 179 g, the heaviest recorded for Israeli 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 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — 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
- — 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 engaddensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/atractaspis-engaddensis
@misc{atractaspis_engaddensis_2026,
title = {Atractaspis engaddensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/atractaspis-engaddensis}
}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.