Reptilia · Squamata
Rhinophis philippinusCuvier, 1829
Peters' Philippine Earth Snake
Photograph by Pieter Prins, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A burrowing, nocturnal, meat-eating lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 270 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Uropeltidae › Rhinophis
- Grows to
- 270mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Fossorial
Longer than only 22% of all species in Uropeltidae 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 157 to 740 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
31 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
- Endangered
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(ii,iii)+2ab(ii,iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 252.6mm10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 270mm10.5 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 148.7mm5.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 79.6mm3.25 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 82mm3.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 9.68g0.34 oz
270 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Huntley et al. 2021 (max 259 mm total length, 252.6 mm SVL, n = 35; in 18 females 82-259, mean 148.7 mm total length, 79.6-252.6, mean 144.7 mm SVL; males 86-172 mm total length, mean 139.7, SVL 81.5-165.5, mean 133.98 mm n = 16)
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, Grassland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 100–1084m
- Range size
- 3058km²
no actual data but can be imputed as carnivorous like all snakes
(De Silva and Ukuwela, 2017) (recorded by Anuj Shinde),
"fossorial (leaf litter, termite mounds), > 50% digging" (Gearty et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
Feldman et al. 2015
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Cuvier
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1829
- Type locality
- Sri Lanka
Keeping one
Peters' Philippine Earth Snake is assessed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
3 ft 4 in × 3 ft 4 in × 2 ft 1 in(101 × 101 × 63 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 5 in (13 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
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 snout-vent length of 10 in (252.6 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 Peters' Philippine Earth 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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 10 g, the heaviest recorded for Peters' Philippine Earth 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Uropeltidae
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). Rhinophis philippinus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/rhinophis-philippinus
@misc{rhinophis_philippinus_2026,
title = {Rhinophis philippinus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/rhinophis-philippinus}
}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.