Reptilia · Squamata
Bothrops pauloensisAmaral, 1925
Cerrado Lancehead
Photograph by Nathan Ruser, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 100 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Bothrops
- Grows to
- 1001mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 15.1years
Longer than 67% 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
36 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
- 2014
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 15.1years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 895mm2 ft 11 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1001mm3 ft 3 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 867mm2 ft 10 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 252.5mm10 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 470g1 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 176g6.2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 10.5g0.37 oz
895 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), females 767 mm SVL, 867 mm total length (Travaglia-Cardoso et al. 2021; n = 2), hatchlings 220-285 mm SVL, 7.9-13.1 g (Travaglia-Cardoso et al. 2021), "mean SVL = 611 mm; range 504–782 mm; N = 17; this study" (Fiorillo et al. 2021), Diaz-Ricaurte et al. 2022 (5 males 440-580 mm mean 505 mm SVL, omitted a suspicious value of 139 mm 117g - by far both shortest and heaviest; means based on 4 remaining specimens, 6 females 459-625 mean 553.7 mm SVL, 59-180, mean 105.3 g), Cabral et al. 2022 (max total length 1001 mm; max SVL: 878 mm)
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
- Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 12–749m
- Range size
- 1,833,013km²
"It feeds mainly on small mammals and lizards but has been recorded consuming birds, snakes, amphibians and centipedes, with ontogenetic shifts according to diet" (Travaglia-Cardoso et al. 2021), mostly lizards and mammals (Fiorillo et al. 2021)
Sit (Glaudas et al. 2019)
Cathemeral (Feldman 2015)/primarily nocturnal (Travaglia-Cardoso et al. 2021, Fiorillo et al. 2021)
Feldman 2015, Travaglia-Cardoso et al. 2021, Fiorillo et al. 2021
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 12
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–20eggs
- Mean clutch
- 7–9.3eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
9.3 (Schuett et al. 2002), 4-20 (Travaglia-Cardoso et al. 2021; in their sample litters of 4 and 10), 4-20 (Fiorillo et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Amaral
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1925
- Type locality
- Brazil
Keeping one
3 ft 3 in × 19.5 in × 2 ft 6 in(100 × 50 × 75 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 3 ft 3 in (1001 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 Cerrado Lancehead. 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.
47kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 470 g, the heaviest recorded for Cerrado 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 · 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — 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). Bothrops pauloensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bothrops-pauloensis
@misc{bothrops_pauloensis_2026,
title = {Bothrops pauloensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bothrops-pauloensis}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.