Reptilia · Squamata
Hemachatus haemachatusBonnaterre, 1790
Ringhals
Photograph by ProfbergerLee R. Berger, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 150 cm nose to tail.
Also called Ring-necked Spitting Cobra, Rinkhals.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Hemachatus
- Grows to
- 1500mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 13years
Longer than 80% of all elapid 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 219 to 5,710 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
33 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
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2021
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 13years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 982mm3 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1500mm4 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 190mm7.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 280.3g9.9 oz
1500 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Barends and Maritz 2021 (SVL: 506-982, mean 708.6 ± 146.75, n = 7; female SVL: mean 574.67, range 506-628, n = 3), Marais 2022 (adults average .8-1.2 m max 1.5 m, hatchlings 16-22 cm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Montane Grasslands & Savannas
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2500m
- Range size
- 772,191km²
likes toads, also eats lizards, birds, bird eggs rodents and snakes (Marais 2022)
active (Marais 2022)
Nocturnal (Stark et al. 2018, Bates et al. 2014, Hu et al. 2020, O'Shea 2018), mainly diurnal may hunt at night in mid summer (Marais 2022)
(Scharf et al. 2015, Hu et al. 2020, O'Shea 2018) but may climb (Marais 2022)
0-2500 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 25eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 20–63eggs
- Mean clutch
- 25eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Bates and Stobie 2022
20-30 (O'Shea 2011, O'Shea 2018), max 63 (Marais 2005), mean=25 (Hu et al. 2020), 20-30 but as many as 63 (Marais 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Bonnaterre
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1790
- Type locality
- Japon et Perse
Keeping one
4 ft 11 in × 2 ft 6 in × 3 ft 8 in(150 × 75 × 113 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 4 ft 11 in (1500 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 Ringhals. 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.
29kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 280 g, the heaviest recorded for Ringhals — 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 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
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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 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
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Elapidae
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). Hemachatus haemachatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemachatus-haemachatus
@misc{hemachatus_haemachatus_2026,
title = {Hemachatus haemachatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemachatus-haemachatus}
}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.