Reptilia · Squamata
Platyceps rhodorachisJan, 1863
Wadi Racer
Photograph by موسی مزینانیان Mousa Mazinanian, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 133 cm nose to tail.
Also called Braid Snake, Common Cliff Racer, Desert racer.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Platyceps
- Grows to
- 1333mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 4.5years
Longer than 85% 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
34 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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Brown
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 4.5years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 990mm3 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1333mm4 ft 4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 200.6g7.1 oz
1400 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016, not sure about the species concept), max 129 cm (Kamali 2020, Dehghani et al. 2016), max 1300 (Carranza et al. 2021), Milto and Rastegar-Pouyani 2023 ("The snake measured 990 mm SVL, 343 mm tail length"), Spawls et al. 2023 (80-130 mm, hatchlings 35 cm - seem too big)
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
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Desert, Rocky, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 43m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2600m
- Range size
- 5,174,966km²
fish, amphibians, mammaks, lizards and birds (Carranza et al. 2021), "small lizards, rats, nestlings, small birds and sometimes insects." (Malik et al. 2021)
Wang et al. 2023
(Kamali 2020), Diurnal (Carranza et al. 2021, Malik et al. 2021)
"scansorial (climber)" (Gearty et al. 2021), semi aquatic and terrestrial (inferred from Carranza et al. 2021)
sea level to 2200 (Kamali 2020), 0-2600 (Carranza et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–9eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
4-9 (Geniez 2018), 3-7 (Carranza et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Platyceps rhodorachis subniger (BOETTGER 1893) Platyceps rhodorachis rhodorachis (JAN in FILIPPI 1865)
- Described by
- Jan
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1863
- Type locality
- Iran
Keeping one
4 ft 4 in × 2 ft 2 in × 3 ft 3 in(133 × 67 × 100 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 4 in (1333 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 Wadi 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.
22kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 201 g, the heaviest recorded for Wadi 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
- — 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
- — 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
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 rhodorachis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-rhodorachis
@misc{platyceps_rhodorachis_2026,
title = {Platyceps rhodorachis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-rhodorachis}
}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.