Reptilia · Squamata
Pseudechis porphyriacusShaw, 1794
Australian black snake
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 220 cm nose to tail.
Also called Red-bellied Black Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Pseudechis
- Grows to
- 2200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 25years
Longer than 91% of all elapid 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 219 to 5,710 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
44 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
- 2017
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 25years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 20.83°C69 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 20.5–33°C69–91 °F
11.6 (Stark et al. 2020), over 25 (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1295mm4 ft 3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 996mm3 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2200mm7 ft 3 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 1060mm3 ft 6 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 928mm3 ft 1 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 220mm8.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 250mm9.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 23.78mm0.9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 552.6g1.2 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 11.4g0.4 oz
2000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Eipper and Eipper 2022 (mean 1300 mm, 750 g, max 2200 mm, 3300 g; hatchlings 250 mm, 11.4 g), Shine 1977 (mean female SVL 1061 mm, neonates 20.22 g, n = 14), Shine 1994 (131 males 72.5-129.5, mean 106 cm SVL; 66 females 73.4-111.7, mean 93 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 220 mm)
snakes only in this source
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Wetlands
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 800m
- Range size
- 952,863km²
frogs, tadpoles, fish, lizards, and smakes (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
(Mirtschin et al. 2017, Murphy et al. 2003, O'Shea 2018), predominantly diurnal, occasionally emcountered at night in warm weather (Eipper and Eipper 2022)
Scharf et al. 2015
e.g. coastal Queensland (Murphy et al. 2003), 0-800 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 24eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–40eggs
- Mean clutch
- 11.6–12.4eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.84–1per year
- First breeds at
- 31months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 372days
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
5-18 mean=11.6 n=21 (Shine 1987b), 8-40 (Mirtschin et al. 2017, Murphy et al. 2003), 5-18 possibly 40 (O'Shea 2018), 5-23, average 12 (Eipper and Eipper 2022), 5-12 mean 12.4, n = 35 (Shine 1977), Shine 1994 (5-11, mean 11.6, n = 21 clutches)
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Shaw
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1794
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
7 ft 3 in × 3 ft 7 in × 5 ft 5 in(220 × 110 × 165 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 7 ft 3 in (2200 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 69 °F (20.8 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
54kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 553 g, the heaviest recorded for Australian black 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
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — 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 Elapidae
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). Pseudechis porphyriacus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pseudechis-porphyriacus
@misc{pseudechis_porphyriacus_2026,
title = {Pseudechis porphyriacus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pseudechis-porphyriacus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.