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Squamata · ColubridaeEntry 17,942 of 21,572
Queensnake, Regina septemvittata

Reptilia · Squamata

Regina septemvittataSay, 1825

Queensnake

Photograph by Jared Shorma, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A day-active, meat-eating snake from the Nearctic region, reaching 922 mm nose to tail.

Also called Queen Snake.

Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Regina

Grows to
922mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives up to
19.3years
Body length across Colubridae

Longer than 66% of all colubrid snakes anyone has measured.

66% of 2,008 species are smaller34% larger
98 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest3,800 mm

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

40 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 298, and Body mass (greatest) as 191.4 — 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
2007
Population trend
Stable

The animal itself

Limbs
None
Pupil
Round
Venomous
No
Fangs
At the back of the mouth
Longest recorded life
19.3years

Stark et al. 2020

Size

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
922mm3 ft

snakes only in this source

Hatchling length · nose to tail
190mm7.5 in
Body mass at hatchingmeasured
1.51g0.05 oz
Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
191.4g6.8 oz

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
298g10.5 oz

AnAge rates this record "acceptable"

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

crayfish specialist (Deepak et al. 2022), "Queensnakes prey almost exclusively on crayfish (Cambarus spp.), particularly those that are freshly molted" (Beiler et al. 2021 same in Sheldon 2022 who also say they will occasionally eat frogs, tadpoles and fish)

How it hunts
Active foraging

Active (Camper 2019)

Active
Diurnal

Guyer et al. 2019, Beane et al. 2010, Beiler et al. 2021

Where it lives
Semi-aquatic

Arboreal&Terrestrial (Guyer et al. 2019), semi aquatic (deduced from Beiler et al. 2021)

Habitat
Wetlands
Biome
Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
Region
Nearctic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level
760m

From Coastal Plain and Sandhills up to 760 (Beane et al. 2010), min: Upper Coastal Plain (Camper 2019), 0-760 (O'Shea 2018)

Range size
1,054,840km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Viviparous

Feldman et al. 2015

Gestation or incubation
105days
Average clutch
11eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
4–39eggs

mean 11 (Meiri et al. 2019), 5-23 (Guyer et al. 2019), 5-15 (Beane et al. 2010), 5-14 n=29 (Camper 2019), 4-39 (O'Shea 2018), 8-12 (Phillips et al. 2022)

Mean clutch
11eggs
Clutches in a year
1per year
Clutches a year
1per year
First breeds at
36months
Age at first breeding · female
1095days

Naming and history

Suborder
Serpentes
Infraorder
Alethinophidia
Subspecies
No
Described by
Say
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1825
Type locality
USA

Keeping one

3 ft × 18 in × 2 ft 3 in(92 × 46 × 69 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 3 ft (922 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 Queensnake. 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.

21kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 191 g, the heaviest recorded for Queensnake — 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 · greatest recorded
  • — 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
  • — 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
  • — 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
  • — 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
  • — Lowest it lives · above sea level

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). Regina septemvittata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/regina-septemvittata

@misc{regina_septemvittata_2026,
  title  = {Regina septemvittata},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/regina-septemvittata}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
  3. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  4. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.