Reptilia · Squamata
Austrelaps superbusGünther, 1858
Copperhead Snake
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 173 cm nose to tail.
Also called Lowlands Copperhead.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Austrelaps
- Grows to
- 1730mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 13years
Longer than 86% of all elapid snakes 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 219 to 5,710 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
45 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
- 2017
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 13years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 32°C90 °F
- Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- 33.5°C92 °F
Stark et al. 2020: 13; Eipper and Eipper 2022: more than 13
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1245mm4 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 693mm2 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1730mm5 ft 8 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 781mm2 ft 7 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 697mm2 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 155.8mm6.25 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 200mm7.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 501.7g1.1 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3.72g0.13 oz
1700 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Shine 1987 (SVL 436-1245, female means 668-726, a full term embryo 168 cm, smallest field collected 119 mm), Fearn et al. 2012 (SVL 540–1152, female mean 779.08 mm), Eipper and Eipper 2022 (mean 1100mm, 650 g, max 1730 mm, 3000 g on Tasmania, 1600 mm 1500 g on the mainland; neonates 200 mm, 4 g), Shine 1977 (mean female SVL 706 mm, neonates 5.89 g), Shine 1994 (126 males 47.7-124.5, mean 76.5 cm SVL; 69 females 43.6-91.3, mean 67.9 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 168 mm)
snakes only in this source
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 11months
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2130m
- Range size
- 207,707km²
frogs and lizards (Shine 1987, Fearn et al. 2012), frogs, lizards, snakes an small mammals (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Active (Glaudas et al. 2019)
(Scharf et al. 2015, Cogger 2018, O'Shea 2018), Eipper and Eipper 2022 (diurnal, occasionally nocturnal)
Scharf et al. 2015, Eipper and Eipper 2022
0-2125 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 15eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–45eggs
- Mean clutch
- 14–16.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.67–0.85per year
- First breeds at
- 24months
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019, Shine 1987
max=20, mean=14.6 (Mirtschin et al. 2017), 9-45 (O'Shea 2011), mean=14.6 (Shine 1987a), max=15 (O'Shea 2018), 3-32, mean 15 (Eipper and Eipper 2022), 9-31, mean 16.5 (Shine 1977), Shine 1994 (6-32, mean 15, n = 36 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1858
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
5 ft 8 in × 2 ft 10 in × 4 ft 3 in(173 × 87 × 130 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
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 total length of 5 ft 8 in (1730 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 90 °F (32 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
49kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 502 g, the heaviest recorded for Copperhead 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 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 · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Elapidae
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). Austrelaps superbus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/austrelaps-superbus
@misc{austrelaps_superbus_2026,
title = {Austrelaps superbus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/austrelaps-superbus}
}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.