Reptilia · Squamata
Pseudorabdion tayloriLeviton & Brown, 1959
Taylor's Burrowing Snake
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A burrowing, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 354 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Pseudorabdion
- Grows to
- 354mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Fossorial
Longer than only 13% 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
29 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2021
- Red List criteria
- B1b(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 304mm12 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 192mm7.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 354mm14 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 225mm8.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 11.89g0.42 oz
195 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 1 (Pitogo 2021; adult, SVL = 304 mm; TL = 50 mm), Leviton and Brown 1959 (2 females, 189, 195 mm standard length [I assume SVL], 229, 221 mm TL)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Dietcomputed
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 200–1570m
- Range size
- 8.6km²
no actual data but can be imputed as carnivorous like all snakes
"fossorial and apparently nocturnal nature of the species" (Pitogo 2021)
Pitogo 2021
204-1570 (Pitogo 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
Feldman et al. 2015
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Leviton & Brown
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1959
- Type locality
- Philippines
Keeping one
14 in × 7 in × 10.5 in(35 × 18 × 27 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 7 in (18 cm) deep.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 14 in (354 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 Taylor's Burrowing Snake. 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 12 g, the heaviest recorded for Taylor's Burrowing 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 · adult female, mean
- — 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 it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — Smallest clutch recorded
- — Largest clutch recorded
- — 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
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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). Pseudorabdion taylori. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pseudorabdion-taylori
@misc{pseudorabdion_taylori_2026,
title = {Pseudorabdion taylori},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pseudorabdion-taylori}
}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.