Reptilia · Squamata
Philothamnus hoplogasterGünther, 1863
Green Water Snake
Photograph by Mahomed Desai, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 960 mm nose to tail.
Also called Southeastern Green snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Philothamnus
- Grows to
- 960mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Semi-aquatic
Longer than 69% 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
33 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
- 2014
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Green
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Pupil
- Round
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 685mm2 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 960mm3 ft 2 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 175mm7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 83.09g2.9 oz
960 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), average 600 "a large specimen would measure 100 cm" (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), Pietersen et al. 2021 (max SVL 662 mm in males, 685 mm in females; hatchlings 150-200 mm TL), Marais 2022 (adults average 25-40 cm, max nearly 1 m, hatchlings 15-20 cm), Trape 2023 (50-96 cm), Armstrong and Jordaan 2023 (356–444, mean 384.7 mm SVL, 511–648, mean 567.1 total length, 13.4–20.9, mean 16.7 g), Spawls et al. 2023 (40-96 cm, hatchlings 15-20 cm)
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
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1900m
- Range size
- 4,398,431km²
mainly frogs and tadpoles, also lizards and fish (Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022 who say also that juveniles eat grasshopers and frogs are captured both in the water and on land), amphibians and reptiles (van Huyssteen 2023), frogs and lizards (Malonza and Bwong 2023), mainly frogs, also fishes (Trape 2023, Spawls et al. 2023)
active and diurnal (Pietersen et al. 2021), active foraging (van Huyssteen 2023)
diurnal snake (Broadley and Blaylock 2013), extremely active diurnal snake (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), diurnal (Pietersen et al. 2021, van Huyssteen 2023, Marais 2022, Malonza and Bwong 2023, Trape 2023, Spawls et al. 2023)
This is an active diurnal snake, usually found along streams or marshy areas (Broadley and Blaylock 2013), requires water and swims well (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), predominantly arboreal but also a skilled swimmer also occasionally on the ground (Pietersen et al. 2021), arboreal and terrestrial (van Huyssteen 2023), Marais 2022 (excellent swimmer, climbs well, show terrestrial icon too), arboreal (Malonza and Bwong 2023, Spawls et al. 2023), arboreal, sometimes on the ground - but sometimes eat fishes (Trape 2023)
1032 n=1 (Bittencourt-Silva 2019), 1082-1569 (Conradie et al. 2021), 0-1800 (Malonza and Bwong 2023), 1900 (Spawls et al. 2023, n = 1)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 27eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–8eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
3-16 (Chippaux and Jackson 2019), 3-8 (Marais 2005, Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022, Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1863
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
3 ft 2 in × 19 in × 2 ft 4 in(96 × 48 × 72 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 3 ft 2 in (960 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 Green Water 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.
10kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 83 g, the heaviest recorded for Green 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.
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 · 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
- — Venomous
- — 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
- — 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). Philothamnus hoplogaster. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/philothamnus-hoplogaster
@misc{philothamnus_hoplogaster_2026,
title = {Philothamnus hoplogaster},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/philothamnus-hoplogaster}
}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.