Reptilia · Squamata
Heterodon platirhinosLatreille, 1801
Eastern Hognose Snake
Photograph by Bladerunner8u, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A burrowing, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Nearctic region, reaching 116 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Heterodon
- Grows to
- 1156mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 15years
Longer than 78% 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
37 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
- 15years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 28.1°C
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 660mm2 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1156mm3 ft 10 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 210mm8.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 178.1g6.3 oz
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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 760m
- Range size
- 3,328,648km²
amphibans, reptiles, birds and small mammals (Sheldon 2022)
Active (Murphy et al. 2003)
Stark et al. 2018, Guyer et al. 2019, Beane et al. 2010, Camper 2019, Hu et al. 2020
Scharf et al. 2015, Hu et al. 2020
Coastal Plain up to 760 (Beane et al. 2010)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 22.8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–69eggs
- Mean clutch
- 23eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.5per year
- First breeds at
- 24months
Feldman et al. 2015
4-69 (Guyer et al. 2019), 4-60 (Beane et al. 2010), 4-61 mean=23 (Camper 2019), 4-61 (Sheldon 2022), 8-20 (Phillips et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Latreille
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1801
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
3 ft 10 in × 23 in × 2 ft 10 in(116 × 58 × 87 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 23 in (58 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 3 ft 10 in (1156 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 83 °F (28.1 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
20kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 178 g, the heaviest recorded for Eastern 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, 3 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 and cream blotching with red eyes.
- Axanthicbreeder consensus
Yellow and orange absent, leaving a grey, black and white animal.
- Colour phasebreeder consensus
This species varies enormously in the wild — red, orange, grey, olive and near-black animals all occur, sometimes in one clutch. It follows the population and is not a gene anyone selects a ratio 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
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — 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
- — 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 platirhinos. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/heterodon-platirhinos
@misc{heterodon_platirhinos_2026,
title = {Heterodon platirhinos},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/heterodon-platirhinos}
}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.