Reptilia · Squamata
Heterodon nasicusBaird & Girard, 1852
Plains Hognose Snake
Photograph by The original uploader was Dawson at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A burrowing, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Nearctic region, reaching 154 cm nose to tail.
Also called Dusty Hognose Snake, Western Hognose Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Heterodon
- Grows to
- 1540mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 89% 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
40 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
- 2007
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1540mm5 ft 1 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 150mm6 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 185mm7.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 345.4g12.2 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 350g12.3 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 2.45g0.09 oz
snakes only in this source
1540 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Durso et al. 2022 (150-674 mm SVL from hatchlings to max, adults 350 mm SVL), hatchlings 17-20 cm (Phillips et al. 2022)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2440m
- Range size
- 1,716,293km²
amphibians, reptiles, mice, bird and turtle eggs (Sheldon 2022), lizards, amphibians, rodents, and turtle eggs (Durso et al. 2022)
Active (Feldman 2015)
Stark et al. 2018
Scharf et al. 2015
0-2440 (Feldman 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Gestation or incubation
- 56days
- Average clutch
- 10.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–24eggs
- Mean clutch
- 10.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.5per year
- First breeds at
- 24months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 730days
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 10.5 (Meiri et al. 2019), 2-24 (Sheldon 2022), 8-12 (Phillips et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Baird & Girard
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1852
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
5 ft 1 in × 2 ft 6 in × 3 ft 9 in(154 × 77 × 116 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 2 ft 6 in (77 cm) deep.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 1 in (1540 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 Plains Hognose 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.
35kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 345 g, the heaviest recorded for Plains Hognose 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.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 7 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
What each pairing produces → · Two genes at once →
- Albinobreeder consensus
No black pigment, leaving orange, yellow and white with red eyes.
- Anacondabreeder consensus
Blotches reduced and pushed toward the spine, leaving clean flanks. Two copies produce a Superconda, which is nearly patternless.
Worth knowing. A Superconda is the two-copy form and is a healthy, established animal — unlike the two-copy form of some genes in other species, it carries no documented welfare problem. Breeding two Anacondas together produces roughly one Superconda in four.
- Arcticbreeder consensus
High contrast in greys and browns with a lighter ground. Two copies produce a Super Arctic, paler again and often nearly white between the markings.
- Axanthicbreeder consensus
Yellow and orange pigment absent, leaving a grey, black and white animal.
- Lavenderbreeder consensus
Grey-purple ground colour with softened, paler markings.
- Red Albinobreeder consensus
Albinos selected over generations for the deepest red and orange. The albino gene is inherited; the intensity is not — it is chosen, one clutch at a time.
- Toffeebreeder consensus
Brown and caramel in place of black, with a pale belly and dark eyes.
Other inherited traits
Inherited characteristics and conditions recorded for this species. These are not morphs — nobody breeds for them.
- Lymphoma1 reference
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 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — 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
- — 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 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). Heterodon nasicus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/heterodon-nasicus
@misc{heterodon_nasicus_2026,
title = {Heterodon nasicus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/heterodon-nasicus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.