Reptilia · Squamata
Sibynophis chinensisGünther, 1889
Chinese Many-tooth Snake
Photograph by Kim, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 835 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Sibynophis
- Grows to
- 835mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 62% 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
37 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
- 2011
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Brown, Gray
- Pupil
- Round
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 835mm2 ft 9 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 636mm2 ft 1 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 136.5mm5.25 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 184.3mm7.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 78.03g2.8 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.66g0.06 oz
snakes only in this source
Chen et al. 2019 (listed as SVL, I suspect it may be total length), "Average snoutvent length (SVL), tail length (TL), and body weight (BW) of hatchlings were 136.5 ± 5.17 mm, 47.76 ± 2.80 mm, and 1.66 ± 0.12 g, respectively." and a gravid female "have a snout-vent length (SVL) of 460 mm, a tail length (TL) of 176 mm, a head length (HL) of 15.70 mm, and a body weight (BW) of 44.8 g." (Banjade et al. 2020), Wang et al. 2023 (female standard length [probably total length, unsure] 215~661 mm), Wang et al. 2023 (max total length 835 mm)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 400–2000m
- Range size
- 2,611,101km²
lizards, frogs, snakes (Wang et al. 2023)
Wang et al. 2023
Feldman 2015
IUCN (400 to 2000)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.5
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–6eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3eggs
- Egg length
- 36.5mm1.5 in
- Egg width
- 15mm0.6 in
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
mean=3 (Feldman 2015), 6 (Banjade et al. 2020)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Sibynophis chinensis chinensis (GÜNTHER 1889) Sibynophis chinensis grahami (BOULENGER 1904) Sibynophis chinensis miyiensis ZHAO & KOU 1987
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1889
- Type locality
- China
Keeping one
2 ft 9 in × 16.5 in × 2 ft 1 in(84 × 42 × 63 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 2 ft 9 in (835 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 Chinese Many-tooth 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.
9kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 78 g, the heaviest recorded for Chinese Many-tooth 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 · greatest recorded
- — 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
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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 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
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — 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). Sibynophis chinensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sibynophis-chinensis
@misc{sibynophis_chinensis_2026,
title = {Sibynophis chinensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sibynophis-chinensis}
}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.