Reptilia · Squamata
Dendroaspis angusticepsSmith, 1849
Green Mamba
Photograph by David~O, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 250 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Dendroaspis
- Grows to
- 2500mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 95% of all elapid 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 219 to 5,710 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
- 2014
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Green
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1480mm4 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2500mm8 ft 2 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 2000mm6 ft 7 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 400mm15.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 766.7g1.7 lb
2500 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Barends and Maritz 2021 (SVL: 633-1396, mean 1059.25 ± 313.16, n = 8 female SVL: 713-1396, mean 1082.5, n = 4), Wilkey and Terrell 2017 (1210-2500, mean 1830), Petras et al. 2016 (female mean 2000, males 1800 mm), Pietersen et al. 2021 (max SVL 1453 mm in males, 1480 mm in females; neonates 350-450 mm TL), Marais 2022 (adults average 1.3-1.8 m, seldom more than 2.5 m, hatchlings 35-40 cm), Spawls et al. 2023 (1.5-2.3 m potentially more, hatchlings 30-40 cm)
snakes only in this source
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, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1700m
- Range size
- 474,725km²
mostly birds, also arboreal mammals, juveniles may take arboreal lizards (Marais 2022, see also Spawls et al. 2023), birds and their nestlings, rodents and bats (Malonza and Bwong 2023)
Active (Bates et al. 2014), sit and wait (implied by Wilkey and Terrell 2017)
Wikipedia, Petras et al. 2016, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022, Malonza and Bwong 2023, Spawls et al. 2023
Bates et al. 2014, Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022, Malonza and Bwong 2023, Spawls et al. 2023
sea level to 200 (Bates et al. 2014), max 1700 (Malonza and Bwong 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 11.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–17eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
Feldman et al. 2015
10-17 (O'Shea 2011), 6-17 (Marais 2005, Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022), up to 10 (Bates et al. 2014), max 17 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Smith
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1849
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
6 ft 2 in × 4 ft 1 in × 12 ft 4 in(188 × 125 × 375 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 8 ft 2 in (2500 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 Mamba. 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.
72kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 767 g, the heaviest recorded for Green Mamba — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — 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 Elapidae
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). Dendroaspis angusticeps. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/dendroaspis-angusticeps
@misc{dendroaspis_angusticeps_2026,
title = {Dendroaspis angusticeps},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/dendroaspis-angusticeps}
}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.