All Angles Creatures
Squamata · ViperidaeEntry 2,695 of 21,572
Gaboon Adder, Bitis gabonica

Reptilia · Squamata

Bitis gabonicaDuméril, Bibron, Duméril, 1854

Gaboon Adder

Photograph by Lucy Keith-Diagne, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 185 cm nose to tail.

Also called Gaboon Viper.

Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Bitis

Grows to
1850mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Nocturnal
Lives up to
22years
Body length across Viperidae

Longer than 94% of all vipers anyone has measured.

94% of 362 species are smaller6% larger
280 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest3,900 mm

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

38 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 1,190.1 — 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
Vulnerable
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2019
Population trend
Decreasing
Red List criteria
A2abd

The animal itself

Limbs
None
Venomous
Yes
Fangs
At the front of the mouth
Longest recorded life
22years

Stark et al. 2020

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
1270mm4 ft 2 in

1800 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Kane et al. 2022 (gravid females 630–1330, mean 1045 mm total length), max 1850 mm (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), Pietersen et al. 2021 (max SVL 1230 in males, 1270 mm in females young 240-370 mm TL), 117.3 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History), Marais 2022 (900-1470 in S. Africa, larger elsewhere; hatchlings 25-32 cm), Spawls et al. 2023 (90-175 cm, hatchlings 25-37 cm)

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
1850mm6 ft 1 in

snakes only in this source

Female length · mean, nose to tail
1045mm3 ft 5 in
Hatchling length · nose to tail
305mm12 in
Body mass at hatchingmeasured
32g1.1 oz
Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
1190.1g2.6 lb

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
2381g5.2 lb

AnAge rates this record "acceptable"

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

mostly birds and mammals (Pietersen et al. 2021), mammals birds and toads (Marais 2022)

How it hunts
Sit and wait

Sit (Glaudas et al. 2019, Schalger 2003, Marsh & Whaler 1984, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022)

Active
Nocturnal

(Marsh & Whaler 1984), mostly nocturnal (Pietersen et al. 2021), nocturnal but basks (Marais 2022)

Where it lives
Terrestrial

Murphy et al. 2003

Habitat
Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
Region
Afrotropic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level
2100m

occurs mainly in coastal dune forest which occurs as a strip of up to a few kilometres wide along the coastline (Bates et al. 2014), 850 (Portik et al. 2016), 1146-1363 (Conradie et al. 2021), 0-2100 (Malonza and Bwong 2023), 600-1800 (Spawls et al. 2023)

Range size
4,469,268km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Viviparous

Feldman et al. 2015

Average clutch
15.5eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
2–60eggs

8-43,16, 17, 22, 23, 25, 26, 24, 5-32 mean=18 (Mallow et al. 2003, see also 630–1330), 16-13 (Marais 2005), 2, 43 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), 16-43 (Bates et al. 2014), max=60, normally 16-30 (Murphy et al. 2003), 5-32 mean=17.56 s.d.=9.84 (Luiselli et al. 1998), mean 27 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), 8-43 (Pietersen et al. 2021), 16-30 (Marais 2022), 11-30 but max 60 (Spawls et al. 2023)

Mean clutch
17.6–27eggs
Clutches a year
0.33–0.5per year

Naming and history

Suborder
Serpentes
Infraorder
Alethinophidia
Subspecies
No
Described by
Duméril, Bibron, Duméril
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1854
Type locality
Gabon

Keeping one

Gaboon Adder is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.

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 Gaboon 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.

106kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 1,190 g, the heaviest recorded for Gaboon 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
  • — Clutches in a year
  • — 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
  • — 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 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 gabonica. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bitis-gabonica

@misc{bitis_gabonica_2026,
  title  = {Bitis gabonica},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bitis-gabonica}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  3. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
  4. AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.