Reptilia · Squamata
Malpolon moilensisReuss, 1834
Moila Snake
Photograph by Goodshort, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 150 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Psammophiidae › Malpolon
- Grows to
- 1500mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 74% of all species in Psammophiidae 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 380 to 2,500 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
34 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
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 866mm2 ft 10 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 631mm2 ft 1 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1500mm4 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 117mm4.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 175mm7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 209.1g7.4 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 68.6g2.4 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3g0.11 oz
1890 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016, Eid 2021) but this is erraneous: see De Haan 2006, max 1300 (Bar et al. 2021), at the Steinhardt museum max is 1051 mm, (866 mm SVL), Kamali 2020: max 117 cm, max 1500 (Carranza et al. 2021), Bar et al. 2021 (150-1050, globally to 1300, weight 3-190 g), 187.5 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, mean female SVL 631 mm, SMNH Aug 2023, n = 2, min SVL 117 - looks reasonable as 2nd smallest 123 mm SVL), Trape 2023 (60-135 cm), Spawls et al. 2023 (70-150 cm, hatchlings 15-20 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
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1800m
birds, insects, frogs, eggs and lizards (Kamali 2020), rodents (Carranza et al. 2021), lizards and mammals (Eid 2021), lizards, birds, snakes and rodents (Bar et al. 2021, see also Trape 2023, Spawls et al. 2023), variety of vertebrates (Albarwari 2021)
Active (Carranza et al. 2021, Trape 2023), ambush (Albarwari 2021)
Diurnal (Kamali 2020, Eid 2021), diurnal and crepuscular (Carranza et al. 2021), crepuscular (Bar et al. 2021), crepuscular and nocturnal during the hot season and diurnal in winter (Trape 2023, see also Spawls et al. 2023, Albarwari 2021)
"partially terrestrial" (Eid 2021; not sure what the other part is)
0-500 (Kamali 2020), 0-600 (Carranza et al. 2021), Spawls et al. 2023 (max 1800 in Morocco), 0-1500 (Albarwari 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–18eggs
del Marmol et al. 2019
4-18 (del Marmol et al. 2019, Carranza et al. 2021, Eid 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023, Albarwari 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Reuss
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1834
- Type locality
- Saudi Arabia
Keeping one
11 ft 4 in × 11 ft 4 in × 7 ft 1 in(346 × 346 × 217 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
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 2 ft 10 in (866 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 Moila 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.
23kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 209 g, the heaviest recorded for Moila 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
- — 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
- — Average clutch
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Range size
Others in Psammophiidae
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). Malpolon moilensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malpolon-moilensis
@misc{malpolon_moilensis_2026,
title = {Malpolon moilensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malpolon-moilensis}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- 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.