Reptilia · Squamata
Causus rhombeatusLichtenstein, 1823
Common or Rhombic Night Adder
Photograph by kevin koen, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 950 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Causus
- Grows to
- 950mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 10years
Longer than 59% 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
38 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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 10years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 830mm2 ft 9 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 950mm3 ft 1 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 145mm5.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 384.7g13.6 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 308g10.9 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 133.9g4.7 oz
950 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 300-6000 but may reach 1000 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), Pietersen et al. 2021 (max SVL 830 mm in males, 680 mm in females; hatchlings 130-160 mm total length), 173 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History), Devaney 2022 (2 females 539, 445 mm), Marais 2022 (adults average 30-60 cm, max ~1 m, hatchlings 13-16 cm), 35-89 cm (Trape 2023), Spawls et al. 2023 (30-95, hatchlings 13-16 cm 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
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2400m
- Range size
- 8,946,310km²
a frog (Conradie et al. 2021), anurans, juveniles eat tadpoles (Pietersen et al. 2021), anurans (Devaney 2022, Trape 2023), amphibian specialist (van Huyssteen 2023), amphibians (Spawls et al. 2023)
Active (Glaudas et al. 2019, van Huyssteen 2023)
diurnal but mostly hunts during the evening (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), diurnal (Pietersen et al. 2021, van Huyssteen 2023), cathemeral (Malonza and Bwong 2023, Spawls et al. 2023)
"surficial (terrestrial, non-scansorial)" (Gearty et al. 2021), terrestrial (Wilkey and Terrell 2017, van Huyssteen 2023, Trape 2023), largely terrestrial (Marais 2022, Malonza and Bwong 2023), terrestrial but will climb when chasing frogs (Spawls et al. 2023)
277-375 (Conradie et al. 2021), near sea level to 1500 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), 0-2200 (Malonza and Bwong 2023), 0-2400 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 16.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–28eggs
- Mean clutch
- 18.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 3per year
Feldman et al. 2015, Spawls et al. 2023
mean=18.5 n=2 (Ineich et al. 2006), 7-26 (Mallow et al. 2003), 1-26 (Chippaux and Jackson 2019, Marais 2005, Wilkey and Terrell 2017), 7-26 (Murphy et al. 2003, Pietersen et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023), 6-28 (Marais 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Lichtenstein
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1823
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
3 ft 1 in × 18.5 in × 2 ft 4 in(95 × 48 × 71 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 1 in (950 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 Common or Rhombic Night Adder. 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.
39kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 385 g, the heaviest recorded for Common or Rhombic Night Adder — 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
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — 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
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — 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 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). Causus rhombeatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/causus-rhombeatus
@misc{causus_rhombeatus_2026,
title = {Causus rhombeatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/causus-rhombeatus}
}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.