Reptilia · Squamata
Bungarus candidusLinnaeus, 1758
Blue Krait
Photograph by Yung-Lun Lin, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 160 cm nose to tail.
Once published as Bungarus javanicus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Bungarus
- Grows to
- 1600mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 83% of all elapid snakes 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 219 to 5,710 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
34 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
- 2011
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 942mm3 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 828mm2 ft 9 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1600mm5 ft 3 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 862mm2 ft 10 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 305mm12 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 253.1g8.9 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 6.5g0.23 oz
1600 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Hong et al. 2021 (female 792 mm SVL, 70 mm tail), Kuch and Mebs 2007 (female Body length 828 mm; tail length 109 mm; total length 963 mm, an adult male of 942 mm snout-vent-length, 143 mm tail length (1085 mm total length),) Cox et al. 2012 (average 1000-1500 mm, 135-285 grams; neonates 5-8 g, 270-340 mm TL)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1500m
- Range size
- 1,842,261km²
snake (Thongproh et al. 2020), mostly snakes, lizards and amphibians (Vuong et al. 2023), an eel (Charlton et al. 2023), snakes, probably also lizards (Cox et al. 2012)
(Feldman 2015, Maury et al. 2022, Vuong et al. 2023, Cox et al. 2012), feeding on a blindsnake at 14:00 (Thongproh et al. 2020)
Feldman 2015, Cox et al. 2012
0-1200 (Feldman 2015), max 1200 (Vuong et al. 2023), 545-1500 (Cox et al. 2012)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–10eggs
- Mean clutch
- 7eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Vuong et al. 2023
mean=7 (Feldman 2015), 4-10 (Cox et al. 2012)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Indiis” (in error)
Keeping one
5 ft 3 in × 2 ft 7 in × 3 ft 11 in(160 × 80 × 120 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 5 ft 3 in (1600 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 Blue Krait. 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.
27kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 253 g, the heaviest recorded for Blue Krait — 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 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 · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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 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
- — 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 Elapidae
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). Bungarus candidus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bungarus-candidus
@misc{bungarus_candidus_2026,
title = {Bungarus candidus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bungarus-candidus}
}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.