Reptilia · Squamata
Nerodia sipedonLinnaeus, 1758
Northern Water Snake
Photograph by Patrick Coin (Patrick Coin), CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A day-active, meat-eating snake from the Nearctic region, reaching 150 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Nerodia
- Grows to
- 1500mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 21years
Longer than 88% 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
44 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 1,306, and Body mass (greatest) as 321 — 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
- 2007
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 21years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 24.8°C77 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 24.8–30.8°C77–87 °F
Stark et al. 2020
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 866mm2 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1500mm4 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 200mm7.75 in
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 325g11.5 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.86g0.07 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 321g11.3 oz
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 1306g2.9 lb
1500 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Rowe et al. 2022 (13 females mean SVL 634.5, range 526–866; mass 125–314, mean 214 g), Phillips et al. 2022 (neonates 15-25 cm TL)
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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Wetlands
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1680m
- Range size
- 2,827,648km²
fish and amphibians (Sheldon 2022)
Active (Camper 2019)
Hu et al. 2020
(Hu et al. 2020), Aquatic (Deepak et al. 2022)
Coastal Plain and up to 1500 (Beane et al. 2010), 0-1680 (Feldman 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Gestation or incubation
- 122days
- Average clutch
- 27.2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–99eggs
- Mean clutch
- 27.2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 24–36months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 730days
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 27.2 (Meiri et al. 2019), 5-59 (Guyer et al. 2019), 8-50 (Beane et al. 2010), 4-99 (Camper 2019, Sheldon 2022), 20-50 (Phillips et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Nerodia sipedon insularum (CONANT & CLAY 1937) Nerodia sipedon pleuralis (COPE 1892) Nerodia sipedon sipedon (LINNAEUS 1758) Nerodia sipedon williamengelsi (CONANT & LAZELL 1973)
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- America septentrionali
Keeping one
4 ft 11 in × 2 ft 6 in × 3 ft 8 in(150 × 75 × 113 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 4 ft 11 in (1500 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 77 °F (24.8 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
33kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 321 g, the heaviest recorded for Northern Water 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.
Morphs
1 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 0 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Scalelesspeer reviewed
- Evaporative water loss in scaleless snakes. — Comp Biochem Physiol A Comp Physiol 1975
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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — 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
- — 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 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). Nerodia sipedon. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/nerodia-sipedon
@misc{nerodia_sipedon_2026,
title = {Nerodia sipedon},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/nerodia-sipedon}
}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.