Reptilia · Squamata
Bungarus fasciatusSchneider, 1801
Banded Krait
Photograph by Ankur Nandi, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 245 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Bungarus
- Grows to
- 2450mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 13.2years
Longer than 95% 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
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 3,113, and Body mass (greatest) as 477.4 — 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
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2011
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Yellow
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 13.2years
(Stark et al. 2020), about 20 (Mahana and Choudhury 2023)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1220mm4 ft
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2450mm8 ft
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 335mm13 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 300mm12 in
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 17.7g0.62 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 477.4g1.1 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 3113g6.9 lb
2250 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), hatchlings mass 8.19 g ? (Chen et al. 2021 does not fit the 16.9 g I had written), Mohapatra et al. 2021 (max 2450), Biakzuala et al. 2023 (SVL for a 6 males & 8 females from NE India: 444.0–1220.0 mm and 700.0–1186.0 mm, respectively; hatchling average SVLs 318.6-351 mm, 19.9-21.4 g), Cox et al. 2012 (1200-2125 mm, wild caught specimens weigh 540-2245 g, hatchlings 14-19.6 g, 265-335 mm TL)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2500m
- Range size
- 5,346,049km²
snake (Bose et al. 2021), snakes, lizards, rodents and fishes (Mohapatra et al. 2021), "The ophiophagous diet of this venomous snake comprises a broad spectrum of prey items, even including its congener B. caeruleus. It also preys on skinks, fish, frogs, and eggs of snakes" (Biakzuala et al. 2021d) see also Cox et al. 2012
Wang et al. 2023
(O'Shea 2018, Mohapatra et al. 2021, Cox et al. 2012), "Ecological notes. The first specimen was found dead beside the road at 2228 h. The second specimen was found slowly crawling beside the road at 0227 h." (Fukuyama et al. 2021)
(Scharf et al. 2015, Duc et al. 2021, Cox et al. 2012), "Ecological notes. The first specimen was found dead beside the road at 2228 h. The second specimen was found slowly crawling beside the road at 0227 h." (Fukuyama et al. 2021)
0-2500 (O'Shea 2018), 40-2300 (Biakzuala et al. 2023), max 2300 (Cox et al. 2012)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 9eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–19eggs
- Mean clutch
- 9eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Cox et al. 2012
mean 9 (Scharf et al. 2015), 3-14 (O'Shea 2011), 4-14 (Whitaker and Captain 2004, Mahana and Choudhury 2023, Cox et al. 2012), 3-12 (O'Shea 2018), up to 14 (Mohapatra et al. 2021), 8 & 19 (Biakzuala et al. 2023, n = 2)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Schneider
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1801
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
8 ft × 4 ft × 6 ft(245 × 123 × 184 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 8 ft (2450 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 Banded 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.
47kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 477 g, the heaviest recorded for Banded 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 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — 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 fasciatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bungarus-fasciatus
@misc{bungarus_fasciatus_2026,
title = {Bungarus fasciatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bungarus-fasciatus}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.