Reptilia · Squamata
Lytorhynchus diademaDuméril, Bibron, Duméril, 1854
Awl-headed Snake
Photograph by גל וין משתמש:Galvine, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 520 mm nose to tail.
Also called Crowned Leafnose Snake, Diademed Sand Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Lytorhynchus
- Grows to
- 520mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 0.4years
Longer than only 36% 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 0.4years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 25.9°C
Myhrvold, Baldridge, Chan, Sivam, Freeman, and Ernest, 2015, Ecology, 96:3109-3109
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 391mm15.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 328mm13 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 520mm20.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 148mm5.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 155mm6 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 21.71g0.77 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 11.2g0.4 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.2g0.04 oz
440 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 510 mm total length (Kamali 2020), max 520 mm (Carranza et al. 2021), 120 (doubtful) or 148-391 mm SVL; females 260-362 mm SVL, mean 328, n = 10 (SMNH), 300-480 (Eid 2021), 155-458 total length, 1.2-25.8 g (Bar et al. 2021), 25.8 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History), Trape 2023 (30-45 cm), Spawls et al. 2023 (25-46 cm)
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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2300m
- Range size
- 13,298,425km²
frogs and lizards (Kamali 2020; frogs??), geckos and probably insects (Carranza et al. 2021), lizards (Bar et al. 2021), lizards and arthropods (Trape 2023), lizards and probably arthropods (Spawls et al. 2023)
Active (Feldman 2015, Bar et al. 2021)
(O'Shea 2018, Kamali 2020, Shai Meiri, personal observations, Carranza et al. 2021, Alshammari et al. 2021, Eid 2021, Trape 2023, Spawls et al. 2023), strictly nocturnal (Bar et al. 2021)
(Feldman 2015, Shai Meiri, pers. obs.: nearly obligate sand dweller, Spawls et al. 2023), fossorial (Carranza et al. 2021; I doubt it)
0-2300 (O'Shea 2018), 0-2200 (Kamali 2020), 0-800 (Carranza et al. 2021), max 1500 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–5eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Kamali 2020
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
3-5 (del Marmol et al. 2019, O'Shea 2018, Carranza et al. 2021, Eid 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
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
- Algeria
Keeping one
20.5 in × 10 in × 15.5 in(52 × 26 × 39 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 20.5 in (520 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 Awl-headed 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.
3kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 22 g, the heaviest recorded for Awl-headed 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
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Venomous
- — 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). Lytorhynchus diadema. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lytorhynchus-diadema
@misc{lytorhynchus_diadema_2026,
title = {Lytorhynchus diadema},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lytorhynchus-diadema}
}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.