Reptilia · Squamata
Cerastes cerastesLinnaeus, 1758
Desert Horned Viper
Photograph by Julien Renoult, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 890 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Cerastes
- Grows to
- 890mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 18years
Longer than 53% 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
37 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
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 18years
Bar et al. 2021 (18 years in captivity), 14 years in captivity (Spawls et al. 2023)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 746mm2 ft 5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 592mm23.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 890mm2 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 158mm6.25 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 160mm6.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 289.8g10.2 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 201.6g7.1 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3g0.11 oz
890 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Bar et al. 2021 (160-815 mm, globally to 890 mm, 3-530 g), Subach et al. 2022: "The vipers were 51.5 ± 6.6 cm length (mean ± 1 s.d.; range: 32.0–62.3 cm)…. The vipers weighed 107 ± 39 g (mean ± 1 s.d.; range: 31–240 g).", 537 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, in which adult female mean SVL 592.4 mm, n = 5, Aug2023, min SVL 158 mm, max SVL 746 mm), Dorfman et al. 2023 (mean 120 ± 56 g and 50.98 ± 9.45 cm TL), 30-80 cm (Trape 2023), Spawls et al. 2023 (35-90 cm, hatchlings 12-15 cm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 61m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1200m
- Range size
- 9,948,258km²
rodents and lizards (Bar et al. 2021), reptiles, birds, rodents and large insects (Trape 2023)
(Bar et al. 2021, Subach et al. 2022, Dorfman et al. 2023), active foraging (Trape 2023)
(Murphy et al. 2003, Bar et al. 2021 and sm, pers. obs., Subach et al. 2022, Trape 2023), usually nocturnal (Spawls et al. 2023)
"surficial (terrestrial, non-scansorial)" (Gearty et al. 2021), terrestrial (Bar et al. 2021, pers. obs., Spawls et al. 2023)
0-1200 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 16.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8–23eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
8-23 (Mallow et al. 2003), 13 (O'Shea 2011), 10-23 (Chippaux and Jackson 2019), 10-23 (del Marmol et al. 2019, Murphy et al. 2003, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Cerastes cerastes cerastes (LINNAEUS 1758) Cerastes cerastes hoofieni WERNER & SIVAN in WERNER et al. 1999
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
2 ft 11 in × 17.5 in × 2 ft 2 in(89 × 45 × 67 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 2 ft 11 in (890 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 Desert Horned Viper. 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.
30kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 290 g, the heaviest recorded for Desert Horned Viper — 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
- — 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 · 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
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — 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
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). Cerastes cerastes. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cerastes-cerastes
@misc{cerastes_cerastes_2026,
title = {Cerastes cerastes},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cerastes-cerastes}
}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.