Reptilia · Squamata
Micrelaps muelleriBoettger, 1880
Mueller's two-headed snake
Photograph by HLron, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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A nocturnal, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 630 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Micrelapidae › Micrelaps
- Grows to
- 630mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
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.
Two of these figures disagree
Length snout to vent (adult female mean) is given as 449.3, and Length snout to vent (greatest recorded) as 359.3 — but an average female cannot be longer than the longest 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
- 2006
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 630mm2 ft 1 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 149mm5.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 150mm6 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 61.6g2.2 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 10.99g0.39 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.5g0.02 oz
- Length snout to vent · greatest recordeddisputed
- 359.3mm14 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female meandisputed
- 449.3mm17.5 in
snakes only in this source
Jamison et al. 2020 (max 630 mm), Eid 2021 (400-520), Bar et al. 2021 (150-630 mm total length, 0.5-27 g), 23.8 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History), mean adult female SVL 449.3 mm, SMNH Jan 2023, n = 6, min SVL 149 mm)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1800m
- Range size
- 20,347km²
snakes and lizards (Eid 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Jamison 2020)
Feldman 2015, Eid 2021, Bar et al. 2021
Fossorial (O'Shea 2018, Eid 2021), terrestrial (Bar et al. 2021)
minus 300 to 1800 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 3
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–4eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
2 (Bar et al. 2021; n = 1), 4 (Goldberg 2022, n = 1)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Boettger
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1880
- Type locality
- Israel
Keeping one
4 ft 9 in × 4 ft 9 in × 2 ft 11 in(144 × 144 × 90 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 7 in (18 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 14 in (359.3 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 Mueller's two-headed 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.
8kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 62 g, the heaviest recorded for Mueller's two-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
- — 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 it hunts
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Micrelapidae
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). Micrelaps muelleri. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/micrelaps-muelleri
@misc{micrelaps_muelleri_2026,
title = {Micrelaps muelleri},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/micrelaps-muelleri}
}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.