Reptilia · Squamata
Rhynchocalamus melanocephalusJan, 1862
Palestine Kukri Snake
Photograph by Nasser Halaweh, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 550 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Rhynchocalamus
- Grows to
- 550mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
Longer than only 38% 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
36 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 29.4°C
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 435mm17 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 383.5mm15 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 550mm21.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 120mm4.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 140mm5.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 28.02g0.99 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 11.1g0.39 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.5g0.02 oz
550 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Eid 2021 (350-480 mm), Bar et al. 2021 (140-550 mm total length, 0.5-20.6 g), 20.6 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, mean female SVL 394.2 mm, SMNH Aug 2023, n = 6, min SVL 120 mm, Max SVL 435 mm), Dehghani et al. 2016 (41 cm), Goldberg and Maza 2017 (14 adult males, mean SVL = 304.8 mm ± 35.4 SD, range = 256–377 mm; six adult females mean SVL = 372.8 mm) ± 56.5 SD, range = 303–455 mm), Spawls et al. 2023 (30-55 cm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 50–1800m
- Range size
- 59,534km²
lizards and invertebrates (Eid 2021), arthropods and lizards (Bar et al. 2021), arthropods (Spawls et al. 2023)
Nocturnal (O'Shea 2018, Spawls et al. 2023) / Diurnal (Eid 2021)/mostly nocturnal but can be seen during the day (Bar et al. 2021)
Fossorial (O'Shea 2018), Cryptic and Terrestrial (Bar et al. 2021), terrestrial (Spawls et al. 2023)
50-1800 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 4eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Bar et al. 2021
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
Goldberg and Maza 2017 (3-5, n = 2, also cited in Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Jan
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1862
- Type locality
- Lebanon
Keeping one
21.5 in × 11 in × 16.5 in(55 × 28 × 41 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 11 in (28 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 21.5 in (550 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 Palestine Kukri 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.
4kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 28 g, the heaviest recorded for Palestine Kukri 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 · 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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 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). Rhynchocalamus melanocephalus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/rhynchocalamus-melanocephalus
@misc{rhynchocalamus_melanocephalus_2026,
title = {Rhynchocalamus melanocephalus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/rhynchocalamus-melanocephalus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- 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.