Reptilia · Squamata
Platyceps pliniiMerrem, 1820
Banded Racer
Photograph by Ronith Urs, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 185 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Platyceps
- Grows to
- 1854mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 4.5years
Longer than 94% 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
23 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 4.5years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 965mm3 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1854mm6 ft 1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 188.7g6.7 oz
Deepak et al. 2021c (max 1482 mm total length, max SVL: 965 mm female, 4 females 820, 854, 965, 746 mm SVL ), a 975 mm total length female (Patel and Kalki 2022), Parmar and Shah 2023 write their specimen "measured 1,853.6 mm in total length. Previous maximum lengths recorded in the literature were 1,347 mm (Whitaker and Captain 2008) and 1,480 mm (Deepak et al. 2021)."
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
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1260m
"small mammals like rats, mice, shrews and bats, but also frogs, lizards, birds, worms, and for juveniles insects are part of the food spectrum" (Deepak et al. 2021c), frogs, lizards, rodents, birds and occasionally snakes (as Argyrogena fasciolata, Mohapatra et al. 2021), small mammals, lizards, frogs and birds (Ramani and Trivedi 2021)
Deepak et al. 2021c, Ramani and Trivedi 2021
"It is a diurnal species that is only exceptionally observed active during the night" (Deepak et al. 2021c), diurnal (as Argyrogena fasciolata, Mohapatra et al. 2021)
"mainly terrestrial species but also observed to be a good climber (Ingle 2008)" (Deepak et al. 2021c)
from -50 to 1258 (Deepak et al. 2021c)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–30eggs
- Clutches a year
- 2per year
Deepak et al. 2021c
2-23, to 30 in Pakistan (Deepak et al. 2021c; figure 8), up to 12 (as Argyrogena fasciolata, Mohapatra et al. 2021), 2-23 (Patel and Kalki 2022), max 15 (Visvanathan et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Merrem
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1820
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
6 ft 1 in × 3 ft × 4 ft 7 in(185 × 93 × 139 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 1 in (1854 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 Banded Racer. 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.
21kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 189 g, the heaviest recorded for Banded Racer — 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — 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
- — 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
- — Average clutch
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — Conservation status
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
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). Platyceps plinii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-plinii
@misc{platyceps_plinii_2026,
title = {Platyceps plinii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-plinii}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.