Reptilia · Squamata
Eirenis rothiiJan, 1863
Roth's Dwarf Racer
Photograph by איתן פרמן, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 381 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Eirenis
- Grows to
- 381mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 9.9years
Longer than only 17% 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
38 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 372.8, and Length snout to vent (greatest recorded) as 177 — 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
- 2008
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 9.9years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 27.9°C
Bar et al. 2021
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 381mm15 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 80mm3.25 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 100mm4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 12.29g0.43 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 2.86g0.1 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.4g0.01 oz
- Length snout to vent · greatest recordeddisputed
- 177mm7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female meandisputed
- 372.8mm14.5 in
snakes only in this source
350 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 250-350 (Eid 2021), 100-381 mm total length, 0.4-7.4 g (Bar et al. 2021), 7.45 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History), 2 adult females SVL 260, 277 mm, SMNH Aug 2023, smallest juvenile SVL: 60 mm, not sure I buy it, next two 80 mm), Goldberg 2017 (six adult females {rnean SVL = 372.8 mm t 56.5 SD, range = 303-455 mm)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 318m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2000m
- Range size
- 115,667km²
arthropods (Eid 2021), arthropods and snails (Bar et al. 2021), arthropods and occasionally very small lizards (Albarwari 2021)
Nocturnal (Scharf et al. 2015) / Diurnal (Eid 2021), cathemeral (Bar et al. 2021)
Scharf et al. 2015
IUCN (0 to 1500), Near sea level to 2000 (Albarwari 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–3eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 2 (Scharf et al. 2015), 2-3 (Eid 2021), 2 (Bar et al. 2021; n = 2), 2-5 (Albarwari 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Jan
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1863
- Type locality
- Israel
Keeping one
15 in × 7.5 in × 11.5 in(38 × 19 × 29 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 15 in (381 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 Roth's 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 12 g, the heaviest recorded for Roth's 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
- — 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
- — 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
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 rothii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eirenis-rothii
@misc{eirenis_rothii_2026,
title = {Eirenis rothii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eirenis-rothii}
}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.