Reptilia · Squamata
Bothrops otavioiBarbo, Grazziotin, Sazima, Martins, Sawaya, 2012
Vitória's Lancehead
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 692 mm snout to vent.
Also called Vitória Island Lancehead.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Bothrops
- Grows to
- 692mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
Longer than 52% 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 180 to 2,233 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
27 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
- Critically Endangered
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(iii,v)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 692mm2 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 203mm8 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 237.4g8.4 oz
692 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), Barbo et al. 2022a (SVL, females 211–692, mean 380, n = 14; males 203–475 mean 327 n = 16, obviously with juveniles)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Dietcomputed
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Range size
- 2.7km²
no actual data but can be imputed as carnivorous like all snakes
Semi Arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Barbo, Grazziotin, Sazima, Martins, Sawaya
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 2012
- Type locality
- Brazil
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.
25kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 237 g, the heaviest recorded for Vitória's Lancehead — 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 · greatest recorded
- — 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 · 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
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — Smallest clutch recorded
- — Largest clutch recorded
- — 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
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — Biome
- — 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
- — Highest 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). Bothrops otavioi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bothrops-otavioi
@misc{bothrops_otavioi_2026,
title = {Bothrops otavioi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bothrops-otavioi}
}Sources
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.