Reptilia · Squamata
Natrix natrixLinnaeus, 1758
Common Grass Snake
Photograph by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Palearctic region, reaching 205 cm nose to tail.
Once published as Natrix megalocephala — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Natrix
- Grows to
- 2050mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 97% of all colubrid 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 98 to 3,800 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
41 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 843, and Length snout to vent (greatest recorded) as 320 — 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2050mm6 ft 9 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 180mm7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2086.2g4.6 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 96.25g3.4 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3.28g0.12 oz
- Length snout to vent · greatest recordeddisputed
- 320mm12.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female meandisputed
- 843mm2 ft 9 in
snakes only in this source
2000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Naumov et al. 2020 (max 205 cm, see also Dunayev and Orlova 2023), hathclings mass 3.28 g (Chen et al. 2021), 105 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, min SVL 180 mm), Wang et al. 2023 (female standard length [probably total length, unsure] 843 mm)
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
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 108m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2300m
- Range size
- 11,861,290km²
fish, frogs, and rodents (Kamali 2020)
Active (Glaudas et al. 2019)
(Feldman 2015), Diurnal (Kamali 2020, Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Aquatic (Feldman 2015), Semi Aquatic (Deepak et al. 2022, Meiri, pers obs.)
0 up to 1500 (Kamali 2020), ~100 (Shai Meiri, pers. obs. Skyros island), max 1800 for N. megalocephala, 2300 for N. natrix (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 9.16eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 9–32eggs
- Mean clutch
- 9.2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1.5per year
- First breeds at
- 36–51months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 1460days
Feldman et al. 2015
mean=9.16 (Feldman 2015), 13-32 for megalocephala, 4-50, rately to 105 eggs (Dunayev and Orlova 2023, sounds too high)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Natrix natrix moreotica (BEDRIAGA 1882) Natrix natrix natrix (LINNAEUS 1758) Natrix natrix scutata (PALLAS 1771) Natrix natrix syriaca (HECHT 1930) Natrix natrix vulgaris LAURENTI 1768
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Europe
Keeping one
6 ft 9 in × 3 ft 4 in × 5 ft 1 in(205 × 103 × 154 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 6 ft 9 in (2050 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 Common Grass 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.
175kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,086 g, the heaviest recorded for Common Grass 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Fangs
- — 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
Others in Colubridae
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). Natrix natrix. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/natrix-natrix
@misc{natrix_natrix_2026,
title = {Natrix natrix},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/natrix-natrix}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.