Reptilia · Squamata
Hemorrhois ravergieriMénétries, 1832
Spotted Whip Snake
Photograph by Kudaibergen Amirekul, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 159 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Hemorrhois
- Grows to
- 1590mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 13.8years
Longer than 90% 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
36 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
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Brown, Gray
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 13.8years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1330mm4 ft 4 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1590mm5 ft 3 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 1003mm3 ft 3 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 355.7g12.5 oz
snakes only in this source
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Rocky
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 7.5months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 80–2600m
- Range size
- 9,025,342km²
birds, rodents, insects, eggs, and lizards (Kamali 2020, see also Albarwari 2021), "mammals, birds, amphibians and lizards" (Eid 2021 see also Dunayev and Orlova 2023), a lizard (Mazanaeva and Gichikhanova 2022), reptiles, lizards and birds (Khashab 2022)
Wang et al. 2023, Albarwari 2021
Scharf et al. 2015, Kamali 2020, Eid 2021
Scharf et al. 2015, Mazanaeva and Gichikhanova 2022
190-2600 (Showler 2018), above 2000 (Kamali 2020), 80 m (Mazanaeva and Gichikhanova 2022), max 2400 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023), 800-4000, mostly 1200-3600 (Albarwari 2021, sounds weird)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 11.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–18eggs
- Mean clutch
- 11.5eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 11.5 (Scharf et al. 2015), 4-10 (Geniez 2018), 3-10 (Eid 2021, Albarwari 2021), 5-18 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023), up to 10 (Khashab 2022), max 11-12 (Dehghani et al. 2016)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Ménétries
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1832
- Type locality
- Azerbaijan
Keeping one
5 ft 3 in × 2 ft 7 in × 3 ft 11 in(159 × 80 × 119 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 5 ft 3 in (1590 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 Spotted Whip Snake. 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.
36kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 356 g, the heaviest recorded for Spotted Whip Snake — 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 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
- — 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
- — Pattern on the back
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — 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 ravergieri. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemorrhois-ravergieri
@misc{hemorrhois_ravergieri_2026,
title = {Hemorrhois ravergieri},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemorrhois-ravergieri}
}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.