Reptilia · Squamata
Oxyuranus microlepidotusMccoy, 1879
Fierce Snake
Photograph by dhfischer, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 250 cm nose to tail.
Also called Inland Taipan.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Oxyuranus
- Grows to
- 2500mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 23years
Longer than 95% 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
40 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
- 2017
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 23years
max 18 (Stark et al. 2020), max 23 (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1700mm5 ft 7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1438mm4 ft 9 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2500mm8 ft 2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 340mm13.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 480mm19 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 38.85mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1077.2g2.4 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 20.9g0.74 oz
2500 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Eipper and Eipper 2022 (mean 1400 mm, 1100 g, max 2200 mm, 2500 g - they also report very large hatchlings 480 mm and 21 g, I already had 20.9 g), Shine 1994 (13 males 92-169, mean 132 cm SVL; 6 females 133-170, mean 143.8 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 340 mm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 130m
- Range size
- 257,339km²
mammals (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Active (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
(Scharf et al. 2015, Mirtschin et al. 2017), diurnal, crepuscular in hot weather (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Scharf et al. 2015
0-130 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 16.2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8–23eggs
- Mean clutch
- 14–16.2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- Egg length
- 57mm2.25 in
- Egg width
- 30.3mm1.25 in
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
12-20 mean=16.2 SEM=1.5 (Shine & Covacevich 1983), 9-12 (O'Shea 2011), 12-20 (Mirtschin et al. 2017, O'Shea 2018), 8-13, average 14 (Eipper and Eipper 2022), Shine 1994 (12-20, mean 16 .2, n = 5 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Mccoy
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1879
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
8 ft 2 in × 4 ft 1 in × 6 ft 2 in(250 × 125 × 188 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 8 ft 2 in (2500 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 Fierce 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.
97kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,077 g, the heaviest recorded for Fierce 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 · shell length
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — 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). Oxyuranus microlepidotus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oxyuranus-microlepidotus
@misc{oxyuranus_microlepidotus_2026,
title = {Oxyuranus microlepidotus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oxyuranus-microlepidotus}
}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.