Reptilia · Squamata
Platyceps saharicusSchätti & Mccarthy, 2004
Sahara Racer
Photograph by Jacek Pietruszewski, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 160 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Platyceps
- Grows to
- 1600mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 4.5years
Longer than 90% 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
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
- 2012
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 4.5years
TAUM; Scharf et al. 2015, Bar et al. 2021
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1010mm3 ft 4 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 766mm2 ft 6 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1600mm5 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 220mm8.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 260mm10 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 210.4g7.4 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 53.3g1.9 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 2g0.07 oz
Steinhardt Museum of Natural History (max 1410 mm total length, 1100 mm SVL), Bar et al. 2021 (total length 260-1410, weight 2-225 g), 225 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, mean adult female SVL 765.5 mm, SMNH Aug 2023, n = 4, min SVL 220 mm), 70-160 cm (Trape 2023, I have no records above >1410), Spawls et al. 2023 (80-160 cm, hatchlings about 35 cm - looks 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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Rocky, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1700m
- Range size
- 2,453,524km²
lizards, birds and rodents (Bar et al. 2021), mainly lizards, also snakes and amphibians (Trape 2023, see also Spawls et al. 2023)
active (Bar et al. 2021)
almost entirely diurnal (Bar et al. 2021, sm pers. Obs.), diurnal, also dusk and night during the hot season (Trape 2023 - not so in Israel at least), diurnal (Spawls et al. 2023)
Terrestrial (sm, pers. obs.), excellent climber of cliffs and walls (Bar et al. 2021), terrestrial but climbs well on rocks (Spawls et al. 2023)
0-1700 (Spawls et al. 2023), I saw it in Nahal Arugot near the dead sea at ~-370
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8eggs
Bar et al. 2021
about 8 (Bar et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Schätti & Mccarthy
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 2004
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
5 ft 3 in × 2 ft 7 in × 3 ft 11 in(160 × 80 × 120 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.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 5 ft 3 in (1600 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 Sahara 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.
23kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 210 g, the heaviest recorded for Sahara 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 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 · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — 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 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 saharicus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-saharicus
@misc{platyceps_saharicus_2026,
title = {Platyceps saharicus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/platyceps-saharicus}
}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.