Reptilia · Squamata
Bitis worthingtoniParker, 1932
Kenya Horned Viper
Photograph by United States Army Center for Health Promotion and…, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 560 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Bitis
- Grows to
- 560mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 6.5years
Longer than only 16% 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
30 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
- Vulnerable
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2014
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 6.5years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 560mm22 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 96.43g3.4 oz
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1500–2400m
- Range size
- 13,482km²
rodents (Malonza and Bwong 2023)
Sit (Spawls et al. 2018)
Spawls et al. 2018, Malonza and Bwong 2023
1500-2400 (Spawls et al. 2018), above 1500 (O'Shea 2018, Malonza and Bwong 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 9.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 7–12eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
7-12 (O'Shea 2018, Spawls et al. 2018, Mallow et al. 2003), 10 (Malonza and Bwong 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Parker
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1932
- Type locality
- Kenya
Keeping one
Kenya Horned Viper 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.
22 in × 11 in × 16.5 in(56 × 28 × 42 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 22 in (560 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 Kenya Horned Viper. 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.
11kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 96 g, the heaviest recorded for Kenya Horned 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 · greatest recorded
- — 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — 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 worthingtoni. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bitis-worthingtoni
@misc{bitis_worthingtoni_2026,
title = {Bitis worthingtoni},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bitis-worthingtoni}
}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.