Reptilia · Squamata
Micrurus diastemaDuméril, Bibron, Duméril, 1854
Diastema Coral Snake
Photograph by Ruth Percino Daniel, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 101 cm nose to tail.
Also called Variable Coral Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Micrurus
- Grows to
- 1005mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 4.4years
Longer than 60% of all elapid 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 219 to 5,710 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 4.4years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 900mm2 ft 11 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 744mm2 ft 5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1005mm3 ft 4 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 825mm2 ft 8 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 226.3g8 oz
895 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Bello-Sanchez et al. 2021 (can exceed 900, their largest was snout-vent length, SVL = 900 mm; tail length = 105 mm, a male; females: SVL = 686 mm; tail length = 80 mm, SVL = 802 mm; tail length = 83 mm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1600m
- Range size
- 372,212km²
snakes and lizards (Bello-Sanchez et al. 2021)
Diurnal, Nocturnal (Ramirez et al. 2023)
"surficial (terrestrial, non-scansorial)" (Gearty et al. 2021)
0-1500 (Feldman 2015), 0-1600 (Bello-Sanchez et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 7
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 7eggs
- Mean clutch
- 7eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
the single figure reported — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
mean=7 (Feldman 2015)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Micrurus diastema diastema (DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854) Micrurus diastema aglaeope (COPE 1860) Micrurus diastema alienus (WERNER 1903) Micrurus diastema affinis (JAN 1858) Micrurus diastema apiatus (JAN 1858) Micrurus diastema macdougalli ROZE 1967 Micrurus diastema sapperi (WERNER 1903)
- Described by
- Duméril, Bibron, Duméril
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1854
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
3 ft 4 in × 20 in × 2 ft 6 in(101 × 50 × 75 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 3 ft 4 in (1005 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 Diastema Coral 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.
24kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 226 g, the heaviest recorded for Diastema Coral 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
- — 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 it hunts
- — 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
- — 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 Elapidae
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). Micrurus diastema. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/micrurus-diastema
@misc{micrurus_diastema_2026,
title = {Micrurus diastema},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/micrurus-diastema}
}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.