Reptilia · Squamata
Spalerosophis diademaSchlegel, 1837
Royal Snake
Photograph by Kian, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 179 cm nose to tail.
Also called Diadem Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Spalerosophis
- Grows to
- 1790mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 17years
Longer than 93% 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
45 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 17years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28.3°C
Bar et al. 2021 (17 in captivity)
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1545mm5 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 973mm3 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1790mm5 ft 10 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 1358mm4 ft 5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 242mm9.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 250mm9.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 582.1g1.3 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 253g8.9 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 9.8g0.35 oz
2000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 1480 (Kamali 2020), max 1140 (Carranza et al. 2021), 900-1500 (Eid 2021), 250-1550 total length, 4-740 g (Bar et al. 2021), max 737.7 g, mean for adult females 253 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, mean adult female SVL 973.21 mm, n = 21, mean neonate SVL 242 mm), Yadollahvandmiandoab et al. 2023 (SVL 638.25±245.59 range 152.00-1192.00), Hussain et al. 2023 (5 females 640-1340 mm SVL, mean 1035, total lengths 840-1790 mean 1358; 4 males 1280-1545 mm SVL, 1510-1765 mm mean 1492 TL), Trape 2023 (50-165 cm), Spawls et al. 2023 (max 1.6 m, hatchlings 36-42 cm - too big)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–10months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 63m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2000m
- Range size
- 14,623,478km²
insects, lizards and rodents (Kamali 2020), juveniles eat lizards, adults eat small endotherms (Carranza et al. 2021), lizards, rodents and birds (Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
(Kamali 2020, Carranza et al. 2021, Pinho et al. 2023b, sm, pers. obs.), "in winter the snakes are active during the hottest hours of the day (11:00-15:00) at this season, whereas in summer they shift their activity to the early evening and night" (Dmi'el and Borut 1972), diurnal (Eid 2021), shifts activity from mostly nocturnal in summer to diurnal at colder seasons (Bar et al. 2021)
(Shai Meiri, pers. obs., Spawls et al. 2023), mostly trrestrial but a good climber (Bar et al. 2021)
from lowlands to 2000 (Kamali 2020), I found it as low as -138 below sea level (SM), 0-1500 (Carranza et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023), 780–1920 (Hussain et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–17eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8–10eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- Age at first breeding · female
- 547days
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 8 (Meiri et al. 2019), 3-16 (del Marmol et al. 2019), 3-15 (Geniez 2018, Spawls et al. 2023), 6-12 (Carranza et al. 2021), 8-13 (Eid 2021), 3-17 (Bar et al. 2021, mean 8-10)
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Spalerosophis diadema cliffordii (SCHLEGEL 1837) Spalerosophis diadema diadema (SCHLEGEL 1837) Spalerosophis diadema schirazianus (JAN 1863)
- Described by
- Schlegel
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1837
- Type locality
- Impercisely known
Keeping one
5 ft 10 in × 2 ft 11 in × 4 ft 5 in(179 × 90 × 134 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 5 ft 10 in (1790 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 Royal 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.
56kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 582 g, the heaviest recorded for Royal 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — 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). Spalerosophis diadema. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/spalerosophis-diadema
@misc{spalerosophis_diadema_2026,
title = {Spalerosophis diadema},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/spalerosophis-diadema}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.