Reptilia · Squamata
Hemorrhois nummiferReuss, 1834
Asian Racer
Photograph by Kseniia Marianna Prondzynska, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 128 cm nose to tail.
Also called Coin-Marked Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Hemorrhois
- Grows to
- 1275mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 14.5years
Longer than 83% 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
39 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
- 2016
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
- 14.5years
nearly 15 (Bar et al. 2021) so I write 14.5
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1101mm3 ft 7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 959mm3 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1275mm4 ft 2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 229mm9 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 290mm11.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 258.7g9.1 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 95.8g3.4 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 4g0.14 oz
1275 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 1200 (Kamali 2020), 750-1000 (Eid 2021), 290-1275 mm total length, 4-560 g (Bar et al. 2021), 564 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, mean adult female SVL 959, n = 5, Aug 2023, min SVL 229 mm, max SVL 1101 mm), Trape 2023 (60-140 cm), Spawls et al. 2023 (80 to about 150 cm - too large, hatchlings too small at 20-21 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
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 25–2000m
- Range size
- 518,405km²
birds, rodents, insects, eggs, and lizards (Kamali 2020), birds, rodents, lizards and snakes (Bar et al. 2021, see also Trape 2023)
Active (Feldman 2015)
Diurnal (Scharf et al. 2015, Kamali 2020, pers obs.), cathemeral (Eid 2021), mostly afternoon and night, also on winter nights (Bar et al. 2021, see also Spawls et al. 2023), diurnal, crepuscular in summer (Trape 2023)
Terrestrial (Scharf et al. 2015), usually terrestrial but an excellent climber (Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
25-2000 (Showler 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 7.5
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–12eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
4-11 (Geniez 2018), 4-10 (Eid 2021), 3-12 (Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Reuss
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1834
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
4 ft 2 in × 2 ft 1 in × 6 ft 3 in(128 × 64 × 191 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 4 ft 2 in (1275 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 Asian 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.
27kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 259 g, the heaviest recorded for Asian 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 · 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
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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). Hemorrhois nummifer. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemorrhois-nummifer
@misc{hemorrhois_nummifer_2026,
title = {Hemorrhois nummifer},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemorrhois-nummifer}
}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.
- 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.