Reptilia · Squamata
Dendrelaphis punctulatusGray, 1826
Green Tree Snake
Photograph by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 200 cm nose to tail.
Also called Common Tree Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Dendrelaphis
- Grows to
- 2000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 18years
Longer than 95% 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
44 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
- 2017
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Multi
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 18years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1530mm5 ft
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 960mm3 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2000mm6 ft 7 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 828.5mm2 ft 9 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 978mm3 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 244mm9.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 23.8mm0.9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 568.7g1.3 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 5.6g0.2 oz
2000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Lettoof et al. 2023 (SVL 942 mm, mass 134 g), Shine 1994 (58 males 58-113, mean 80.9 cm SVL; 85 females 69.5-153, mean 96 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 244 mm, see also Shine 1991)
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
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest, Marine Intertidal, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 500m
- Range size
- 2,066,962km²
mainly frogs (Lettoof et al. 2023), mostly reptiles and frogs (Shine 1991)
Active (Glaudas et al. 2019)
(Scharf et al. 2015, Lettoof et al. 2023), may be active at any time of the day (Shine 1991)
Scharf et al. 2015, Lettoof et al. 2023
IUCN (0 to 500)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 8.2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–15eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8.1–8.2eggs
- Egg length
- 38.95mm1.5 in
- Egg width
- 16.8mm0.7 in
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
3-15 mean=8.2 s.d.=3 n=19 (Shine 1991), mean 8.1 (Lettoof et al. 2023), Shine 1994 (3-15, mean 8.2, n = 19 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1826
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
4 ft 11 in × 3 ft 3 in × 9 ft 10 in(150 × 100 × 300 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 0.75 × 0.5 × 1.5.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 6 ft 7 in (2000 mm), at 0.75 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Green Tree Snake. 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.
55kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 569 g, the heaviest recorded for Green Tree Snake — 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 · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — 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). Dendrelaphis punctulatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/dendrelaphis-punctulatus
@misc{dendrelaphis_punctulatus_2026,
title = {Dendrelaphis punctulatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/dendrelaphis-punctulatus}
}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.