Reptilia · Squamata
Psammophis subtaeniatusPeters, 1882
Stripe-bellied Sand Snake
Photograph by Ewout Knoester, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 140 cm nose to tail.
Also called Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Psammophiidae › Psammophis
- Grows to
- 1400mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 10years
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
35 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 2,381, and Body mass (greatest) as 230.7 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
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
- 10years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 900mm2 ft 11 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1400mm4 ft 7 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 200mm7.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 230.7g8.1 oz
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 2381g5.2 lb
1400 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 690-1400 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), Pietersen et al. 2021(max SVL 900 mm in males, 885 mm in females, hatchlings about 200 mm TL), Marais 2022 (adults average 50-80 cm, max just under 1.4 m; hatchlings 20 cm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 100–1500m
- Range size
- 1,978,701km²
rodents, lizards, frogs - and rarely birds (Pietersen et al. 2021), arthropods, mammals and reptiles (van Huyssteen 2023), preferes lizards, also frogs, rodents and birds (Marais 2022)
van Huyssteen 2023
Shine 1980c, Pietersen et al. 2021, van Huyssteen 2023, Marais 2022
Terrestrial (Scharf et al. 2015, Shine 1980c), often climbs (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), mostly terrestrial, often climbs (Pietersen et al. 2021), arboreal and terrestrial (van Huyssteen 2023), terrestrial may bask and forage in shrubs and low bushes (Marais 2022)
100-1500 (Bates et al. 2014)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–10eggs
- Mean clutch
- 7eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 7 (Scharf et al. 2015), 4-10 (Marais 2005, Wilkey and Terrell 2017, Pietersen et al. 2021, Marais 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1882
- Type locality
- Mozambique
Keeping one
11 ft 10 in × 11 ft 10 in × 11 ft 10 in(360 × 360 × 360 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 11 in (900 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Stripe-bellied 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.
25kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 231 g, the heaviest recorded for Stripe-bellied 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 · 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
- — 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 subtaeniatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/psammophis-subtaeniatus
@misc{psammophis_subtaeniatus_2026,
title = {Psammophis subtaeniatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/psammophis-subtaeniatus}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.