Reptilia · Squamata
Deinagkistrodon acutusGünther, 1888
Chinese Moccasin
Photograph by No machine-readable author provided. Danleo~commonswiki…, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, dawn-and-dusk, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 154 cm nose to tail.
Also called Hundred-pace viper, five-pacer viper.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Deinagkistrodon
- Grows to
- 1541mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Crepuscular
- Lives up to
- 7.5years
Longer than 89% 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
- Vulnerable
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2011
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- A2d
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Brown
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 7.5years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1403mm4 ft 7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1200mm3 ft 11 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1541mm5 ft 1 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 1403mm4 ft 7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1834.4g4 lb
1490 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Wang et al. 2023 (female standard length [probably total length, unsure] 1200 mm), Wang et al. 2023 (max total length 1541 mm)
snakes only in this source
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Crepuscular
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 100–1500m
- Range size
- 1,182,649km²
rats, frogs, lizards, snakes, birds, Insects, fishes (Wang et al. 2023)
Wang et al. 2023
"surficial (terrestrial, non-scansorial)" (Gearty et al. 2021)
100-1500 (Murphy et al. 2003)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 13eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–35eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
Feldman et al. 2015
6-35 (O'Shea 2011), 5-32 (Murphy et al. 2003)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1888
- Type locality
- China
Keeping one
Chinese Moccasin is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
5 ft 1 in × 2 ft 6 in × 3 ft 10 in(154 × 77 × 116 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 1 in (1541 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 Chinese Moccasin. 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.
156kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,834 g, the heaviest recorded for Chinese Moccasin — 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 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 · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — 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). Deinagkistrodon acutus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/deinagkistrodon-acutus
@misc{deinagkistrodon_acutus_2026,
title = {Deinagkistrodon acutus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/deinagkistrodon-acutus}
}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.