Reptilia · Squamata
Imantodes cenchoaLinnaeus, 1758
Blunthead Tree Snake
Photograph by Seig, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 155 cm nose to tail.
Also called Neotropical Blunt-headed Treesnake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Imantodes
- Grows to
- 1554mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Arboreal
Longer than 90% 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
39 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
- 2015
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 825mm2 ft 8 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 463.4mm18 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1554mm5 ft 1 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 651.7mm2 ft 2 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 157.3g5.5 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 10.1g0.36 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 9.1g0.32 oz
1554 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), "600–700 mm, although some specimens may exceed 1000 mm", but smallest SVL with eggs: 450 mm (Tepos-Ramirez et al. 2021), Cabral et al. 2022 (max Total length 1170 mm, Max SVL: 825 mm), Tepos-Ramirez et al. 2023b (adults average 700 mm but may exceed 1000 mm TL but in their sample of 143 females SVL: 463.42 ± 124.38, range 705–430mm, TL 651.72 ± 184.00, range 1023–586 mm, and 10.09 ± 5.43, range24–1.50 g; 120 males: SVL 462.31 ± 133.73 (684–454), TL 667.44 ± 199.07 (998–652) and mass 8.31 ± 4.32 (18–1 g)
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
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest, Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2000m
- Range size
- 14,254,308km²
lizards (da Frota et al. 2021), carnivore (see Pinto‐Coelho et al. 2021), frogs, lizards, occasionally birds and eggs (Trujillo 2015), frogs, lizards and lizard eggs (Cruz-Garcia et al. 2023b)
Active (Henderson 2010, Leenders 2019)
(Henderson 2010, Leenders 2019, Marques et al. 2021, Tepos-Ramirez et al. 2021, da Frota et al. 2021), nocturnal and crepuscular (Trujillo 2015)
Henderson 2010, Leenders 2019, Marques et al. 2021, da Frota et al. 2021
0-4900 feet (Henderson 2010), NSL-1600 (Leenders 2019), 230-1340 (Señaris & Rojas-Runjaic 2020), 0-2000 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.65eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–8eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.65eggs
- First breeds at
- 24months
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 2.65 (Meiri et al. 2019), 1-3 (Ray 2017), up to 8 (Leenders 2019), 1-3 rarely 8 (O'Shea 2018)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- America
Keeping one
3 ft 10 in × 2 ft 7 in × 7 ft 8 in(117 × 78 × 233 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 0.75 × 0.5 × 1.5.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 (1554 mm), at 0.75 × 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 Blunthead Tree 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.
18kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 157 g, the heaviest recorded for Blunthead Tree 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
- — 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — 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
- — Venomous
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — 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). Imantodes cenchoa. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/imantodes-cenchoa
@misc{imantodes_cenchoa_2026,
title = {Imantodes cenchoa},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/imantodes-cenchoa}
}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.