Reptilia · Squamata
Eirenis coronellaSchlegel, 1837
Crowned Dwarf Racer
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 350 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Eirenis
- Grows to
- 350mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 7years
Longer than only 13% 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
35 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Length snout to vent (adult female mean) is given as 328, and Length snout to vent (greatest recorded) as 207.5 — but an average female cannot be longer than the longest recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2012
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 7years
up to 7 (Bar et al. 2021)
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 350mm14 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 102mm4 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 126mm5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 10.07g0.36 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 5.56g0.2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.6g0.02 oz
- Length snout to vent · greatest recordeddisputed
- 207.5mm8.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female meandisputed
- 328mm13 in
snakes only in this source
310 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 300-370 (Eid 2021), Bar et al. 2021 (126-336 mm, 0.6-11.2 g), 11.2 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, in which adult female mean SVL 328 mm, n = 9, Aug2023, min SVL 102 mm), Aidek et al. 2023 (max 35 cm), Spawls et al. 2023 (max 33 cm)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1600m
- Range size
- 510,825km²
arthropods (Eid 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023), arthropods, worms and "rather accidentally very small lizards" (Albarwari 2021; how do you accidentally eat a lizard?)
(Feldman 2015, Eid 2021, Spawls et al. 2023), mostly diurnal but can also be active at night (Bar et al. 2021)
(Feldman 2015), secretive (Spawls et al. 2023)
IUCN (0 to 1600), max 1600 (Spawls et al. 2023), 500-600 (SM, pers. obs, n = 4)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3.5
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–5eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
5 (Geniez 2018), up to 5 (Eid 2021), 3-5 (Bar et al. 2021), 5 (Spawls et al. 2023, n = 1), 2-5 (Albarwari 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Eirenis coronella coronella (SCHLEGEL 1837) Eirenis coronella fennelli ARNOLD 1982 Eirenis coronella ibrahimi SIVAN & WERNER 2003
- Described by
- Schlegel
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1837
- Type locality
- Syria
Keeping one
14 in × 7 in × 10.5 in(35 × 18 × 26 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 14 in (350 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 Crowned Dwarf Racer. 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 10 g, the heaviest recorded for Crowned Dwarf Racer — 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 male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — 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 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). Eirenis coronella. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eirenis-coronella
@misc{eirenis_coronella_2026,
title = {Eirenis coronella},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eirenis-coronella}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.