Reptilia · Squamata
Hoplocephalus stephensiiKrefft, 1869
Stephens's Banded Snake
Photograph by Lachlan Copeland, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 125 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Hoplocephalus
- Grows to
- 1250mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 11years
Longer than 71% 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
38 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- A3c
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
- 11years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 820mm2 ft 8 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 694mm2 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1250mm4 ft 1 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 200mm7.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 245mm9.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 180.1g6.4 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 5.6g0.2 oz
1200 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Eipper and Eipper 2022 (mean 900 mm, 180 g, max 1250 mm, 300 g, neonates 245 mm and 5.9 g), Shine 1994 (27 males 47.9-79.5, mean 63.7 cm SVL; 23 females 56.5-82, mean 69.4 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
- Mixed
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Range size
- 98,834km²
frogs, lizards and small mamals (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Mirtschin et al. 2017
Scharf et al. 2015, Mirtschin et al. 2017, Eipper and Eipper 2022
Arboreal (Mirtschin et al. 2017), arboreal&saxicolous (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 5.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–11eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.7–6eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
1-9 mean=6 (Mirtschin et al. 2017), 3-8 mean=5.7 n=7 (Shine 1983b), 3-11 average 6 (Eipper and Eipper 2022), Shine 1994 (3-8, mean 5.7, n = 7 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Krefft
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1869
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
4 ft 1 in × 2 ft 1 in × 6 ft 2 in(125 × 63 × 188 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.
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 4 ft 1 in (1250 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 Stephens's Banded 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.
20kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 180 g, the heaviest recorded for Stephens's Banded 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — 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
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — 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
- — Highest 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 stephensii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hoplocephalus-stephensii
@misc{hoplocephalus_stephensii_2026,
title = {Hoplocephalus stephensii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hoplocephalus-stephensii}
}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.