Reptilia · Squamata
Gloydius ussuriensisEmelianov, 1929
Ussuri Mamushi
Photograph by Alexander A. Fomichev, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, meat-eating snake from the Palearctic region, reaching 680 mm nose to tail.
Once published as Atropoides mexicanus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Gloydius
- Grows to
- 680mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal, nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 12.5years
Longer than only 29% 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
41 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
Lowest it lives (above sea level) is given as 1,414, and Highest it lives (above sea level) as 1,300 — but the lowest place it is found cannot be above the highest. 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 12.5years
Size
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 448.9mm17.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 680mm2 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 202.1mm8 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 165mm6.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 169.7g6 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 56.1g2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 6.6g0.23 oz
650 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Dunayev and Orlova 2023 (65, rarely exceeds 68 cm, neonates 15-18 cm, 4-6 g), Wang et al. 2023 (female standard length [probably total length, unsure] 510~630 mm), Do et al. 2023 (135 Adult females mean 56.14 ± 1.67g 44.89 ± 0.32 cm SVL; 110 Adult males 46.46 ± 1.07 g, 44.71 ± 0.32 cm SVL; 20 Neonates 6.63 ± 0.64 g, 20.21 ± 0.55 cm SVL)
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, nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–7.5months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Range size
- 1,540,088km²
- Lowest it lives · above sea leveldisputed
- 1414m
- Highest it lives · above sea leveldisputed
- 1300m
mostly frogs, rarely small mammals, may also eat fish and insects (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Wang et al. 2023
"surficial (terrestrial, non-scansorial)" (Gearty et al. 2021)
beaches to 1300 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–11eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.5–1per year
- First breeds at
- 40months
Feldman et al. 2015
4-11 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Emelianov
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1929
- Type locality
- Russia
Keeping one
2 ft 3 in × 13.5 in × 20 in(68 × 34 × 51 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 2 ft 3 in (680 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 Ussuri Mamushi. 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.
19kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 170 g, the heaviest recorded for Ussuri Mamushi — 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 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 the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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 ussuriensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gloydius-ussuriensis
@misc{gloydius_ussuriensis_2026,
title = {Gloydius ussuriensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gloydius-ussuriensis}
}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.
- 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.