Reptilia · Squamata
Crotalus durissusLinnaeus, 1758
Cascabel Rattlesnake; Central American Rattlesnake
Photograph by Jorge Armín Escalante-Pasos, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 180 cm nose to tail.
Also called Rupununi Savanna Rattlesnake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Crotalus
- Grows to
- 1800mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 19.8years
Longer than 93% 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
40 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 19.8years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 23.54°C74 °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 snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1674mm5 ft 6 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1800mm5 ft 11 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2477.8g5.5 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 1150g2.5 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 10.5g0.37 oz
1800 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016, Williams and Vera 2023), Cabral et al. 2022 (max Total length 1800 mm, Max SVL: 1674 mm)
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
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2090m
- Range size
- 13,526,194km²
mostly mammals, also lizards (Fiorillo et al. 2021), rats (Trujillo 2015), mostly rodents (Williams and Vera 2023)
Sit (Feldman 2015)
Nocturnal (Stark et al. 2018, Marques et al. 2021, Trujillo 2015), cathemeral (Fiorillo et al. 2021), any time (Premel et al. 2022), nocturnal and crepuscular (Williams and Vera 2023)
Scharf et al. 2015, Fiorillo et al. 2021, Marques et al. 2021
0-5400 feet (Henderson 2010), 0-1920 (Señaris and Rojas-Runjaic 2019, Señaris & Rojas-Runjaic 2020), 0-1000 rarely >1695 (O'Shea 2018), 405-2085 (Williams and Vera 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Gestation or incubation
- 120days
- Average clutch
- 14.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–40eggs
- Mean clutch
- 14.5eggs
- First breeds at
- 36months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 1095days
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 14.5 (Meiri et al. 2019), 9-40+ (O'Shea 2011), 14-35 (Henderson 2010), 2-20 (O'Shea 2018), 21-31 (Fiorillo et al. 2021), max 36 (Williams and Vera 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Crotalus durissus cumanensis HUMBOLDT 1811 Crotalus durissus durissus (LINNAEUS 1758) Crotalus durissus marajoensis (HOGE 1966) Crotalus durissus ruruima (HOGE 1966) Crotalus durissus terrificus (LAURENTI 1768) Crotalus durissus trigonicus (HARRIS & SIMMONS 1978)
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Brazil
Keeping one
5 ft 11 in × 2 ft 11 in × 4 ft 5 in(180 × 90 × 135 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 5 ft 11 in (1800 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 74 °F (23.5 °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.
204kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,478 g, the heaviest recorded for Cascabel Rattlesnake; Central American 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 · 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
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — 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 durissus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/crotalus-durissus
@misc{crotalus_durissus_2026,
title = {Crotalus durissus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/crotalus-durissus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.