Squamata · ColubridaeEntry 10,750 of 21,572

Reptilia · Squamata

Lampropeltis getulaLinnaeus, 1766

Common Kingsnake

Photograph by MH Herpetology, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons

A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Nearctic region, reaching 208 cm nose to tail.

Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Lampropeltis

Grows to: 2083mm; greatest recorded
Eats: Carnivorous
Active: Cathemeral
Lives up to: 33.3years

Body length across Colubridae

Longer than 97% of all colubrid snakes anyone has measured.

97% of 2,008 species are smaller3% larger

98 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest3,800 mm

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

40 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Two of these figures disagree

Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 2,041, and Body mass (greatest) as 671.9 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.

Standing in the world

Still living: Extant
Conservation status: Least Concern
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked: 2016
Population trend: Stable

The animal itself

Limbs: None
Pupil: Round
Venomous: No
Fangs: At the back of the mouth
Longest recorded life: 33.3years
Body temp in the wild · mean, when active: 28.1°C

Size

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded: 2083mm6 ft 10 in
Hatchling length · nose to tail: 250mm9.75 in
Body mass at hatchingmeasured: 4.27g0.15 oz
Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed: 671.9g1.5 lb
Body mass · a typical adultdisputed: 2041g4.5 lb

How it lives

Diet: Carnivorous
How it hunts: Active foraging
Active: Cathemeral
Where it lives: Terrestrial
Habitat: Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
Biome: Temperate Coniferous Forests
Region: Nearctic
Mainland or island: Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level: 2130m
Range size: 607,029km²

Breeding

Reproduction: Oviparous
Gestation or incubation: 61days
Average clutch: 10.5eggs
Eggs or young per clutch: 3–24eggs
Mean clutch: 10.5eggs
Clutches a year: 1.1per year
First breeds at: 36–48months
Age at first breeding · female: 1095days

Naming and history

Suborder: Serpentes
Infraorder: Alethinophidia
Subspecies: No
Described by: Linnaeus
Moved to another genus · since it was first described: Yes
Described in: 1766
Type locality: USA

Keeping one

6 ft 10 in × 3 ft 5 in × 5 ft 1 in(208 × 104 × 156 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 6 ft 10 in (2083 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 Common Kingsnake. 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.

64kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 672 g, the heaviest recorded for Common Kingsnake — 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, 5 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.

What each pairing produces → · Two genes at once →

Amelanisticbreeder consensus
No black pigment, leaving white and yellow banding with red eyes.
Axanthicbreeder consensus
Yellow pigment absent, leaving a black and white animal.
Bandedbreeder consensus
How wide and how regular the bands are, and whether they break into stripes or speckling. Chosen over generations rather than carried by one gene, and strongly tied to where the animals came from.
Hypomelanisticbreeder consensus
Reduced rather than absent black, giving a softer, browner animal that keeps its pattern.
Lavenderbreeder consensus
Grey-purple in place of black, over a white or cream ground.

Other inherited traits

Inherited characteristics and conditions recorded for this species. These are not morphs — nobody breeds for them.

Amyloidosis1 reference

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 · greatest recorded
— 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 · 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
— Clutches in a year
— Hatchling length · smallest recorded
— Hatchling length · largest recorded
— Mature from · youngest recorded
— Mature by · oldest recorded
— Size at maturity · smallest recorded
— Size at maturity · largest 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). Lampropeltis getula. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lampropeltis-getula

@misc{lampropeltis_getula_2026,
  title  = {Lampropeltis getula},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lampropeltis-getula}
}

Sources

Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
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.