Reptilia · Squamata
Hydrodynastes gigasDuméril, Bibron, Duméril, 1854
False Water Cobra
Photograph by Eduardo Luis Beltrocco, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 275 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Hydrodynastes
- Grows to
- 2750mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 16.9years
Longer than 99% 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
- 2014
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 16.9years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 2360mm7 ft 9 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2750mm9 ft
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 1794mm5 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 165mm6.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2302g5.1 lb
Feldman et al. 2016 (total length), Carvalho et al. 2020 (SVL, from melanogigas they consider a synonym of gigas; their highest value for TL is 2730), Giraudo et al. 2014 (smallest juveniles 165 mm SVL; 60 females 925-2360, mean 1436.1 mm SVL; 49 males 853-1632, mean 1250.9 mm SVL, mean tail length of 48 females is 357.7, I assume with similar SVL to the rest so mean total length 358+1436)
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
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 25–600m
- Range size
- 8,022,094km²
amphibians, reptiles, fishes and mammals (details in Giraudo et al. 2014)
Rahhal et al. 2023
Marques et al. 2021
Terrestrial and aquatic (Marques et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 23.5
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 11–36eggs
- Mean clutch
- 23eggs
- Clutches a year
- 0.5–1per year
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
11-36, mean 23, increasing with SVL (Giraudo et al. 2014)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Duméril, Bibron, Duméril
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1854
- Type locality
- Argentina
Keeping one
9 ft × 4 ft 6 in × 6 ft 9 in(275 × 138 × 206 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 9 ft (2750 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 False Water Cobra. 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.
191kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,302 g, the heaviest recorded for False Water Cobra — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — 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). Hydrodynastes gigas. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hydrodynastes-gigas
@misc{hydrodynastes_gigas_2026,
title = {Hydrodynastes gigas},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hydrodynastes-gigas}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.