Reptilia · Squamata
Psammophis biseriatusPeters, 1881
Link-marked Sand Snake
Photograph by Tobias Demetz, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 100 cm nose to tail.
Also called Two-striped Sand Racer.
Reptilia › Squamata › Psammophiidae › Psammophis
- Grows to
- 1000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal
Longer than only 33% of all species in Psammophiidae 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 380 to 2,500 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
- 2014
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 672mm2 ft 2 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 556mm22 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1000mm3 ft 3 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 806mm2 ft 8 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 109.3g3.9 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 43.3g1.5 oz
1000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Smid et al. 2023 (~ 50–80, max 100 cm), Cottone and Bauer 2009 (mean SVL of males 543 mm, range 462-614 mm, mean TL 768, mass 40.7 g n = 12; 8 females 458 - 672, mean 556 mm SVL, mean TL 806, mass 43.3 g), Spawls et al. 2023 (50-100 cm 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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 124m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1300m
- Range size
- 526,176km²
lizards (Malonza and Bwong 2023, Cottone and Bauer 2009), mostly lizards (Spawls et al. 2023)
spending much time motionless in trees, waiting for a prey to pass, Spawls et al. 2023
(Spawls et al. 2018) (recorded by Anuj Shinde), Diurnal (Malonza and Bwong 2023, Cottone and Bauer 2009, Spawls et al. 2023)
(Gearty et al. 2021), largely arboreal (Malonza and Bwong 2023, Spawls et al. 2023)
sea level to 1300 (Malonza and Bwong 2023, Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–4eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
2-4 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1881
- Type locality
- Kenya
Keeping one
8 ft 10 in × 5 ft 6 in × 8 ft 10 in(269 × 168 × 269 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 2 ft 2 in (672 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 Link-marked Sand 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.
13kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 109 g, the heaviest recorded for Link-marked Sand 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 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
- — 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 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
- — 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
Others in Psammophiidae
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). Psammophis biseriatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/psammophis-biseriatus
@misc{psammophis_biseriatus_2026,
title = {Psammophis biseriatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/psammophis-biseriatus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- 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.