Reptilia · Squamata
Elaphe druzeiJablonski, Ribeiro-Júnior, Meiri, 2023
Photograph by Andrea Goddard, CC0, via GBIF
A day-active, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 184 cm nose to tail.
No English name has been recorded for this species.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Elaphe
- Grows to
- 1835mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 14years
Longer than 94% 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
25 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
Body mass (adult female, mean) is given as 644, and Body mass (greatest) as 578.5 — but an average female cannot outweigh the heaviest animal recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 14years
"In Tel Aviv University’s Garden for Zoological Research, snakes kept in terraria lived nearly 14 years" (Jablonski et al. 2023b)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1541mm5 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1135mm3 ft 9 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1835mm6 ft
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 578.5g1.3 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed
- 644g1.4 lb
max SVL 1541 mm (Steinhardt Museum collections, n = 8 measured specimens, max 1935 mm total length), max 1393.8 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History); Jablonski et al. 2023b (325–1541 mm SVL, mean 1066.80 ± 376.22 with juveniles; 6 males SVL 980–1541 mean (1236.67 ± 222.99), 10 females 736–1356, mean 1134.80 ± 216.16 mm SVL; weight of males: 632–958 g, mean 743 g, n = 4, vs. 321–895, mean 644 g, n = 3 in females, "One zoo animal (TAU-R 14382, possibly a female) is even heavier (1394 g) but may have been obese because of the captive conditions.")
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Active season · months of the year
- 6months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 950–2200m
Jablonski et al. 2023b (small vertebrates in captivity)
Jablonski et al. 2023b
Jablonski et al. 2023b ("observed on the ground, shrubs, and climbing in trees and often near water bodies (own data)")
"900-950 m a. s. l. (Al-Quneitra, camp Fauar, Syria, 1976;15,50) to 2200 m" (Jablonski et al. 2023b)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–16eggs
6-16 (Jablonski et al. 2023b)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Jablonski, Ribeiro-Júnior, Meiri
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 2023
- Type locality
- Israel
Keeping one
6 ft × 3 ft × 9 ft(184 × 92 × 275 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 × 1.5.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 (1835 mm), at 1 × 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 Elaphe druzei. 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.
56kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 579 g, the heaviest recorded for Elaphe druzei — 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
- — 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 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 it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — 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
- — Fangs
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Conservation status
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Range size
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). Elaphe druzei. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/elaphe-druzei
@misc{elaphe_druzei_2026,
title = {Elaphe druzei},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/elaphe-druzei}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- 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.