Reptilia · Squamata
Hoplocephalus bungaroidesSchlegel, 1837
Broad-headed Snake
Photograph by prossington, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 120 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Hoplocephalus
- Grows to
- 1200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 28years
Longer than 67% 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
44 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
- Vulnerable
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Red List criteria
- B2ab(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 28years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 28.1–31.1°C83–88 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 31.1°C88 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 16.4–23.8°C62–75 °F
Jolly et al. 2021: 28, 19 (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 710mm2 ft 4 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 572mm22.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1200mm3 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 211.3mm8.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 126.5g4.5 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 71g2.5 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 5.3g0.19 oz
900 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Eipper and Eipper 2022 (mean 800 mm, 120 g, max 1200 mm, 260 g), Shine and Fitzgerald 1989 (female 685 mm SVL and 71 g post partuition, neonates 218-227 mm SVL, 5-5.5 g), Shine 1994 (6 males 50.9-58.5, mean 54.5 cm SVL; 15 females 44.8-71, mean 57.2 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 200 mm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 740m
- Range size
- 22,351km²
"juveniles feed mostly on lizards that they ambush beneath rocks. Adults have a broader diet that includes lizards, birds, and small mammals" (Jolly et al. 2021), lizards (Webb and Shine 1998, Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Sit (Mirtschin et al. 2017, Shine 2022, Webb and Shine 1998)
(Scharf et al. 2015, Mirtschin et al. 2017, Jolly et al. 2021), predominnatly nocturnal but basks (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Terrestrial (Scharf et al. 2015)/saxicolous (Shine 2022, Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Coastal (Mirtschin et al. 2017), 0-740 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 6eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–20eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6–6.8eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.5–1per year
- First breeds at
- 60–72months
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019, Jolly et al. 2021
4-20 (O'Shea 2011), 2-12 (Mirtschin et al. 2017), 4-8 mean=6 n=2 (Shine 1983b), 8-20 (O'Shea 2018), max 9, mean 6.8 (Jolly et al. 2021), 2-12, mean 6 (Eipper and Eipper 2022), 4-12 but many stillborn (Shine and Fitzgerald 1989), Shine 1994 (4-8, mean 6, n = 2 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Schlegel
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1837
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
Broad-headed Snake is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
3 ft 11 in × 23.5 in × 2 ft 11 in(120 × 60 × 90 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.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 11 in (1200 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 83–88 °F (28.1–31.1 °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.
14kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 127 g, the heaviest recorded for Broad-headed 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 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 · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — 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). Hoplocephalus bungaroides. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hoplocephalus-bungaroides
@misc{hoplocephalus_bungaroides_2026,
title = {Hoplocephalus bungaroides},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hoplocephalus-bungaroides}
}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.