Reptilia · Squamata
Crotalus adamanteusPalisot de Beauvois, 1799
Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake
Photograph by Scott Allen Davis, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating snake from the Nearctic region, reaching 252 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Crotalus
- Grows to
- 2515mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 22.9years
Longer than 99% 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
35 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
- 2007
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 22.9years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 24.72°C76 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 17.5–34.5°C64–94 °F
Stark et al. 2020
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2515mm8 ft 3 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 7630.7g17 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 5675g13 lb
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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Coniferous Forests
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 500m
- Range size
- 305,819km²
Endotherms (Ramirez et al. 2023)
Sit (Guyer et al. 2019, Camper 2019)
Stark et al. 2018, Beane et al. 2010, Camper 2019
Arboreal&Terrestrial (Feldman 2015)
mostly Lower Coastal Plain (Guyer et al. 2019, Beane et al. 2010, Camper 2019), 0-500 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 12.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–32eggs
- Mean clutch
- 12.7eggs
- First breeds at
- 24–36months
Feldman et al. 2015
4-29 mean=12.7 (Camper 2019), 4-32 (O'Shea 2011), 8-15 (Guyer et al. 2019), 7-29 (Beane et al. 2010, O'Shea 2018)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Palisot de Beauvois
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1799
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
8 ft 3 in × 4 ft 2 in × 12 ft 5 in(252 × 126 × 377 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 × 1.5.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 3 in (2515 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 76 °F (24.7 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
554kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 7,631 g, the heaviest recorded for Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake — 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 · greatest recorded
- — 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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). Crotalus adamanteus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/crotalus-adamanteus
@misc{crotalus_adamanteus_2026,
title = {Crotalus adamanteus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/crotalus-adamanteus}
}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.