Reptilia · Squamata
Malpolon monspessulanusHermann, 1804
Montpellier Snake
Photograph by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 217 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Psammophiidae › Malpolon
- Grows to
- 2170mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 96% 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
- 2008
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1166mm3 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2170mm7 ft 1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 561.5g1.2 lb
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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 3000m
- Range size
- 1,195,670km²
reptiles, small mammals and birds (Trape 2023)
Active (O'Shea 2018)
(O'Shea 2018, Deso et al. 2021), day or early night (Trape 2023)
Scharf et al. 2015
0-3000 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–20eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8eggs
- First breeds at
- 54months
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 8 (Scharf et al. 2015), 4-20 (O'Shea 2011), 4-18 (del Marmol et al. 2019), 4-12 (O'Shea 2018), 3-11 but 15 for their record female (Deso et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Malpolon monspessulanus monspessulanus (HERMANN 1804) Malpolon monspessulanus saharatlanticus GENIEZ, CLUCHIER & DE HAAN 2006
- Described by
- Hermann
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1804
- Type locality
- France
Keeping one
15 ft 4 in × 15 ft 4 in × 9 ft 7 in(466 × 466 × 292 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 3 ft 10 in (1166 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 Montpellier 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.
55kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 562 g, the heaviest recorded for Montpellier 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
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 monspessulanus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malpolon-monspessulanus
@misc{malpolon_monspessulanus_2026,
title = {Malpolon monspessulanus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malpolon-monspessulanus}
}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.