Reptilia · Squamata
Clelia cleliaDaudin, 1803
Windward Cribo
Photograph by Vincent A. Vos, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 250 cm nose to tail.
Also called Black Mussurana.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Clelia
- Grows to
- 2500mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 11.5years
Longer than 98% of all colubrid 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 98 to 3,800 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
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 11.5years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 2398mm7 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2500mm8 ft 2 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2397.8g5.3 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 1587g3.5 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 16.6g0.59 oz
2500 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Cabral et al. 2022 (max Total length 2240 mm, Max SVL: 1840 mm), max SVL 2398 mm, male (Gaiarsa et al. 2013, who also write "The smallest mature female was 973 mm SVL (Duellman, 2005) and the smallest mature male was 650 mm SVL (Pizzatto, 2005).")
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
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2500m
- Range size
- 13,133,987km²
carnivore (see Pinto‐Coelho et al. 2021), "its diet includes small mammals, lizards and snakes" (Quinteros-Munoz and Aguayo 2021), mostly snakes and mammals (Gaiarsa et al. 2013)
Active (Leenders 2019, Glaudas et al. 2019)
Nocturnal (Stark et al. 2018, Murphy et al. 2003), Quinteros-Munoz and Aguayo 2021 records predation by day, nocturnal and crepuscular (Trujillo 2015), Gaiarsa et al. 2013 mention 12 instances of nocturnality, 6 of diurnality
(Scharf et al. 2015), mostly terrestrial (Quinteros-Munoz and Aguayo 2021), terrestrial and semiarboreal (Trujillo 2015), mainly terrestrial also arboreal and in water (Gaiarsa et al. 2013)
0-900 (Leenders 2019), 15-1500 (Señaris & Rojas-Runjaic 2020), 0-2500 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 19eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 9–25eggs
- Mean clutch
- 12.6–19eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 19 (Meiri et al. 2019), 10-25 (Ray 2017), 10-20 (Murphy et al. 2003, Zeas and Alvarado 2015), 10-22 (O'Shea 2018), 9-22, mean 12.6 (Gaiarsa et al. 2013)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Clelia clelia clelia (DAUDIN 1803) Clelia clelia groomei GREER 1965
- Described by
- Daudin
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1803
- Type locality
- Suriname
Keeping one
8 ft 2 in × 4 ft 1 in × 6 ft 2 in(250 × 125 × 188 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 2 in (2500 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 Windward Cribo. 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.
198kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,398 g, the heaviest recorded for Windward Cribo — 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — 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 Colubridae
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). Clelia clelia. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/clelia-clelia
@misc{clelia_clelia_2026,
title = {Clelia clelia},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/clelia-clelia}
}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.