Elaphe taeniuraCope, 1861

Cave Racer

Photograph by Wang.QG, CC BY, via iNaturalist

An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 270 cm nose to tail.

Also called Beauty Rat Snake, Beauty Snake, Cave-dwelling Ratsnake.

Once published as Orthriophis taeniurus — those names reach this page.

Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Elaphe

Grows to: 2700mm; greatest recorded
Eats: Carnivorous
Active: Cathemeral
Lives up to: 29years

Body length across Colubridae

Longer than 99% of all colubrid snakes anyone has measured.

99% of 2,008 species are smaller1% larger

98 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest3,800 mm

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

42 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: Vulnerable
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked: 2016
Population trend: Decreasing
Red List criteria: A2d

The animal itself

Limbs: None
Colour on the back: Black, Brown
Pattern on the back: Banded, blotched
Pupil: Round
Venomous: No
Fangs: At the back of the mouth
Longest recorded life: 29years

Size

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded: 2700mm8 ft 10 in
Hatchling length · nose to tail: 365mm14.5 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed: 1237.8g2.7 lb
Body mass at hatching: 46.3g1.6 oz

How it lives

Diet: Carnivorous
How it hunts: Active foraging
Active: Cathemeral
Where it lives: Arboreal, terrestrial
Habitat: Caves, Forest, Shrubland, Subterranean
Biome: Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Active season · months of the year: 8–9months
Region: Oriental
Mainland or island: Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level: 3100m
Range size: 5,996,408km²

Breeding

Reproduction: Oviparous
Average clutch: 10.5eggs
Eggs or young per clutch: 2–25eggs
Mean clutch: 9eggs
Clutches a year: 1per year
Egg length: 64mm2.5 in
Egg width: 32mm1.25 in
First breeds at: 36–48months

Naming and history

Suborder: Serpentes
Infraorder: Alethinophidia
Subspecies: Elaphe taeniura callicyanous SCHULZ 2010 Elaphe taeniura friesi (WERNER 1927) Elaphe taeniura grabowskyi (FISCHER 1885) Elaphe taeniura helfenbergeri SCHULZ 2010 Elaphe taeniura mocquardi SCHULZ 1996 Elaphe taeniura ridleyi (BUTLER 1899) Elaphe taeniura schmackeri (BOETTGER 1895) Elaphe taeniura taeniura (COPE 1861) Elaphe taeniura yunnanensis ANDERSON 1879
Described by: Cope
Moved to another genus · since it was first described: No
Described in: 1861
Type locality: China

Keeping one

Cave Racer is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.

8 ft 10 in × 4 ft 5 in × 13 ft 3 in(270 × 135 × 405 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 8 ft 10 in (2700 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 Cave 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.

110kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 1,238 g, the heaviest recorded for Cave 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 · greatest recorded
— Length snout to vent · adult female mean
— 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
— Largest juvenile · snout to vent
— 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
— 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
— Sex decided by
— 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). Elaphe taeniura. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/elaphe-taeniura

@misc{elaphe_taeniura_2026,
  title  = {Elaphe taeniura},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/elaphe-taeniura}
}

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.