Reptilia · Squamata
Liotyphlops ternetziiBoulenger, 1896
Ternetz's Blind Snake
Photograph by Douglas, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A burrowing, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 420 mm nose to tail.
Once published as Liotyphlops beui, Liotyphlops sousai — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Anomalepididae › Liotyphlops
- Grows to
- 420mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Fossorial
What is known
31 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 400mm15.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 420mm16.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 88mm3.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 14.58g0.51 oz
365 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 319 mm SVL (Fiorillo et al. 2021), 88–413 total length (inares-Vargas et al. 2021), 100.5-390.0 mm, mean 234.0 mm, Santos 2018, Cabral et al. 2022: max SVL 400 mm, Santos 2023 (Total length of holotype 325.1 mm, snout–vent length 317 mm), for beui: 381 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Linares-Vargas et al. 2021 (106–381 mm total length), Cabral et al. 2022 (max Total length 326 mm, Max SVL: 321 mm), Entiauspe-Neto et al. 2023 ("SVL 173–294 mm (in males 173–275 mm, in females 191–294 mm)"), Williams and Vera 2023 (max 42 cm TL)
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
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Forest, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 150–1000m
- Range size
- 4,559,800km²
invertebrates (Fiorillo et al. 2021), arthropods (Williams and Vera 2023)
Rahhal et al. 2023
Nocturnal (Feldman 2015, Santiago et al. 2021), cathemeral (Fiorillo et al. 2021)/diurnal (Williams and Vera 2023)
Feldman 2015, Santiago et al. 2021, Fiorillo et al. 2021, Williams and Vera 2023
IUCN (200 to 1000); for beui: 155-915 (O'Shea 2018), "low to moderate altitudes (up to 1000 m above sea level)" (Entiauspe-Neto et al. 2023, so I retain the 155-915 m)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.5
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–7eggs
- Mean clutch
- 7eggs
Feldman 2015, Williams and Vera 2023
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
mean=7 (Feldman 2015), 2-7 (Fiorillo et al. 2021), for beui: 2-24 (O'Shea 2018), 24??, 3 (Williams and Vera 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Scolecophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Boulenger
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1896
- Type locality
- Brazil
Keeping one
5 ft 3 in × 5 ft 3 in × 3 ft 3 in(160 × 160 × 100 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 7.75 in (20 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 snout-vent length of 15.5 in (400 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Ternetz's Blind Snake. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 15 g, the heaviest recorded for Ternetz's Blind 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 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 · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — 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
- — 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
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Anomalepididae
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). Liotyphlops ternetzii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liotyphlops-ternetzii
@misc{liotyphlops_ternetzii_2026,
title = {Liotyphlops ternetzii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liotyphlops-ternetzii}
}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.