Reptilia · Squamata
Naja mossambicaPeters, 1854
Mozambique Spitting Cobra
Photograph by Ryanvanhuyssteen, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 182 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Naja
- Grows to
- 1820mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 88% 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
32 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
Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 8,787, and Body mass (greatest) as 957.1 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever 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
- 2019
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1620mm5 ft 4 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1820mm6 ft
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 240mm9.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 957.1g2.1 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 8787g19 lb
1500 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Barends and Maritz 2021 (SVL: 558-962, mean 735.44 ± 121.11, n = 9; female SVL: mean 729.67 ± 49.8, range 677-776, n = 3), 1000-1500 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), Pietersen et al. 2021(max SVL 1285 mm in males, 1620 mm in females, neonates 230-250 mm TL), Marais 2022 (adults average 0.8-1.2 m, max 1.82 m, hatchlings 23-25 cm), 80-180 cm (Trape 2023)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1750m
- Range size
- 2,461,590km²
mostly amphibians, also birds, mammals and reptiles (Pietersen et al. 2021), see also van Huyssteen 2023, amphibians, lizards, snakes, birds, mammals and insects (Marais 2022), amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals (Trape 2023)
Active (van Huyssteen 2023)
(Broadley and Blaylock 2013, Branch 1998, Pietersen et al. 2021, van Huyssteen 2023), mostly nocurnal (Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Marais 2022)
"scansorial (climber)" (Gearty et al. 2021), mostly terrestrial but will climb (Pietersen et al. 2021), saxicolous and terrestrial (van Huyssteen 2023)
sea level to 1750 (Bates et al. 2014)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 16eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 10–22eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
10-22 (O'Shea 2011, Marais 2005, Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1854
- Type locality
- Mozambique
Keeping one
6 ft × 3 ft × 8 ft 11 in(182 × 91 × 273 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 × 1.5.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 6 ft (1820 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Mozambique Spitting Cobra. 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.
88kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 957 g, the heaviest recorded for Mozambique Spitting Cobra — 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — 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
- — 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
- — Pupil
- — 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 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). Naja mossambica. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/naja-mossambica
@misc{naja_mossambica_2026,
title = {Naja mossambica},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/naja-mossambica}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.