Reptilia · Squamata
Psammophis leightoniBoulenger, 1902
Cape Sand Snake
Photograph by Ryan van Huyssteen, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 140 cm nose to tail.
Also called Fork-marked Sand Snake, Namib Sand Snake [].
Once published as Psammophis namibensis, Psammophis trinasalis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Psammophiidae › Psammophis
- Grows to
- 1400mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 10.3years
Longer than 60% 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
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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 10.3years
Myhrvold, Baldridge, Chan, Sivam, Freeman, and Ernest, 2015, Ecology, 96:3109-3109
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 960mm3 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1400mm4 ft 7 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 230mm9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 272.1g9.6 oz
1000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016, Taft et al. 2021), Barends and Maritz 2021 (SVL: 484-725, mean 620.83 ± 107.7, n = 6; female SVL: mean 662 ± 89.1, range 599-725, n = 2) , 1400 mm total length in Psammophis namibensis (Feldman et al. 2016, Taft et al. 2021), Lobon-Rovira et al. 2022a (SVL 798-960 mm), Marais 2022(adults of trinasalis average 50-80, max just over 1.1 m, namibensis to 1.4 m, leightoni hatchlings 22-24 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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 312–1298m
- Range size
- 62,746km²
mainly lizards, also rodents and snnakes (trinasalis, Marais 2022)
Active (Feldman 2015, Marais 2022 for namibensis)
Shine 1980c, Lobon-Rovira et al. 2022a, Marais 2022 for trinasalis
Shine 1980c, Lobon-Rovira et al. 2022a
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–8eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
8 (Marais 2005), 1 for triansalis (who?), 3-8 for trinasalis (Marais 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Boulenger
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1902
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
12 ft 7 in × 12 ft 7 in × 7 ft 10 in(384 × 384 × 240 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
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 3 ft 2 in (960 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Cape 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.
29kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 272 g, the heaviest recorded for Cape 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 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
- — 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
- — 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 leightoni. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/psammophis-leightoni
@misc{psammophis_leightoni_2026,
title = {Psammophis leightoni},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/psammophis-leightoni}
}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.
- 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.