Reptilia · Squamata
Bitis arietansMerrem, 1820
Puff Adder
Photograph by Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 185 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Bitis
- Grows to
- 1850mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 15.8years
Longer than 94% of all vipers 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 280 to 3,900 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
40 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 2,381, and Body mass (greatest) as 1,023.8 — 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
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 15.8years
Stark et al. 2020 (15.8), more than 14 (Pietersen et al. 2021)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1200mm3 ft 11 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1850mm6 ft 1 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 1040mm3 ft 5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 175mm7 in
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 14.9g0.53 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 1023.8g2.3 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 2381g5.2 lb
1850 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 1100 (Carranza et al. 2021), Kane et al. 2022 (neonates 14-25 g, previously I had 4.8; 2 gravid females 980 and 1100 mm total length), Pietersen et al. 2021 (max SVL 1090 in males, 1200 mm in females, hatchlings 150-200 mm total length), 3750 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History), >1.8 m in Kenya (Marais 2022), same in Trape 2023 (70-190 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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 395m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2200m
- Range size
- 16,252,713km²
amphibians, bird, mammals and reptiles (van Huyssteen 2023)
Sit (Glaudas et al. 2019, Branch 1998, Carranza et al. 2021, Pietersen et al. 2021, van Huyssteen 2023)
It emerges at dusk, lying in cover and ambushing prey. Lies on warm roads at night (the latter usually with dire consequences) (Branch 1998), nocturnal (Carranza et al. 2021), "almost nocturnal" but sometimes seen by day and basks (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), cathemeral (van Huyssteen 2023) mainly nocturnal (Marais 2022), usually nocturnal (Spawls et al. 2023)
(Murphy et al. 2003, Spawls et al. 2023), mainly terrestrial but may be found in low bushes (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), almost exclusively terrestrial (Pietersen et al. 2021), terrestrial and arboreal (Marais 2022)
1363-1763 (Conradie et al. 2021), 0-700 (Carranza et al. 2021), 0-2200 (Malonza and Bwong 2023, Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 35eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 10–156eggs
- Mean clutch
- 35eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.25–0.33per year
- First breeds at
- 36–53months
(Feldman et al., 2015), ovoviparous (del Marmol et al. 2019)
mean 35 (Meiri et al. 2019), 20-40, 147&156 - exceptional litters from Kenya, up to 100, 30-50, 20-40. 80 - exceptional. 20-40, 156. 50 or more (del Marmol et al. 2019). 156, 22, 32 (Mallow et al. 2003, O'Shea 2011, Chippaux and Jackson 2019, Marais 2005, Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Phelps 2010), 16-43 (Bates et al. 2014), 12-32 (Carranza et al. 2021), 30-41 (Kane et al. 2022, n = 2), 2-40 but up to 156 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), 20-156 (Pietersen et al. 2021), 20-40, exceptionally 80 one zoo record of 156 (Marais 2022), usually 10-35 but max 156 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Bitis arietans arietans (MERREM 1820) Bitis arietans somalica PARKER 1949
- Described by
- Merrem
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1820
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
6 ft 1 in × 3 ft × 4 ft 7 in(185 × 93 × 139 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 6 ft 1 in (1850 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Puff Adder. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
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.
93kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,024 g, the heaviest recorded for Puff Adder — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
Others in Viperidae
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). Bitis arietans. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bitis-arietans
@misc{bitis_arietans_2026,
title = {Bitis arietans},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bitis-arietans}
}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.