Reptilia · Squamata
Pareas carinatusWagler, 1830
Keeled Slug Snake
Photograph by Ian Dugdale, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 702 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pareidae › Pareas
- Grows to
- 702mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Arboreal
Longer than 78% of all species in Pareidae 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 145 to 880 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
35 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
- 2011
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 524mm20.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 702mm2 ft 4 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 511mm20 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 168mm6.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 51.13g1.8 oz
600 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 337–702, mean 494.3 mm (Poyarkov et al. 2022, 702 is for the holotype of P. c. tenasserimicus, its svl is 524 mm, n = 26; SVL: 262-524, mean 385 mm, 10 females; SVL: 365-476, mean 403 mm; female Total length: 446-608, mean 511 mm), Cox et al. 2012 (max 600 mm TL, hatchlings 150-185 mm TL)
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
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 550–1780m
- Range size
- 2,856,804km²
snails, slugs (Wang et al. 2023)
Wang et al. 2023
Feldman 2015, Poyarkov et al. 2022, Cox et al. 2012
(Feldman 2015), "arboreal but sometimes found hunting on the surface" (Cox et al. 2012)
550-1780 (O'Shea 2018), 700-1780 (Cox et al. 2012)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–8eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Cox et al. 2012
3-8 (O'Shea 2018, Cox et al. 2012)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Pareas carinatus carinatus (WAGLER 1830) Pareas carinatus tenasserimicus POYARKOV et al. 2022
- Described by
- Wagler
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1830
- Type locality
- Indonesia
Keeping one
6 ft 11 in × 4 ft 4 in × 6 ft 11 in(210 × 131 × 210 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 snout-vent length of 20.5 in (524 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Keeled Slug Snake. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
6kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 51 g, the heaviest recorded for Keeled Slug 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 female mean
- — 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
- — 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
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — 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
Others in Pareidae
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). Pareas carinatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pareas-carinatus
@misc{pareas_carinatus_2026,
title = {Pareas carinatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pareas-carinatus}
}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.