Reptilia · Squamata
Gloydius swildShi & Malhotra, 2021
Glacier pit viper
Photograph by Shi, Jing-Song; Liu, Jin-Cheng; Giri, Rohit; Owens, John…, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
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A rock-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 629 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Gloydius
- Grows to
- 629.1mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Saxicolous
Longer than only 23% of all vipers 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 280 to 3,900 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
27 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Gray
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 552mm21.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 530mm21 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 629.1mm2 ft 1 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 579.3mm23 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 130.3g4.6 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3.23g0.11 oz
Shi et al. 2021 (2 females, 552 & 462.0 mm SVL, total lengths 529.5, 629.1 mm; "The weight of the normal neonates ranged between 3.00–3.45 g (3.01, 3.22, 3.22, 3.23, 3.28, 3.45, average = 3.235, n = 6). The weight of the conjoined twins was 2.86 g (weighed after the first shedding)."), Wang et al. 2023 (female standard length [probably total length, unsure] 529.5 mm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 2940m
rats, lizards, frogs, fishes, birds (Wang et al. 2023)
Wang et al. 2023
"on or under the rocks (especially near the vegetations) on sunny slopes" (Shi et al. 2021) - so I deduce diurnal
"on or under the rocks (especially near the vegetations)" (Shi et al. 2021)
Shi et al. 2021
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8eggs
"One adult female (Holotype) was collected when pregnant, gave birth to eight neonates (including a couple of conjoined twins) on September 20th, 2017 in captivity." (Shi et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Shi & Malhotra
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 2021
- Type locality
- China
Keeping one
2 ft 1 in × 12.5 in × 18.5 in(63 × 32 × 47 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.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 2 ft 1 in (629.1 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 Glacier pit viper. 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.
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 130 g, the heaviest recorded for Glacier pit viper — 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
- — 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 · adult female, mean
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — 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
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Range size
Others in Viperidae
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). Gloydius swild. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gloydius-swild
@misc{gloydius_swild_2026,
title = {Gloydius swild},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gloydius-swild}
}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.