Reptilia · Squamata
Tantilla cucullataMinton, 1956
Big Bend Blackhead Snake
Photograph by Meghan Cassidy, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Nearctic region, reaching 678 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Tantilla
- Grows to
- 678mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
Longer than 50% 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
33 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
- 2007
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 407mm16 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 678mm2 ft 3 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 346.3mm13.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 172mm6.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 23.9g0.84 oz
654 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Easterla 1975 ("large (snout-vent length [SVL] = 404 mm, tail = 112 mm), recently-killed, gravid Big Bend black-headed snake", another female 205 mm SVL, tail = 64 mm, anotehr 194 mm SVL and 60 mm tail; largest male 407 SVL and 127 mm tail), Wilson et al. 2000 (Total length in snakes of all ages ranges from 172-678 mm and tail length from 49-159 mm), Dixon et al. 2000 (32 adults, 325-678 mean 498.4 mm total length)
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, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1300–1710m
- Range size
- 59,991km²
no actual data but can be imputed as carnivorous like all snakes
Feldman 2015, Easterla 1975
Fossorial (Feldman 2015), on the surface (Easterla 1975)
1300-1700 (Feldman 2015), 1707 (Easterla 1975)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 1.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–3eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.5eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
mean=2.5 (Feldman 2015), 2 (Easterla 1975)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Minton
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1956
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
2 ft 3 in × 13.5 in × 20 in(68 × 34 × 51 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 13.5 in (34 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 2 ft 3 in (678 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 Big Bend Blackhead 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.
3kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 24 g, the heaviest recorded for Big Bend Blackhead 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
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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). Tantilla cucullata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tantilla-cucullata
@misc{tantilla_cucullata_2026,
title = {Tantilla cucullata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tantilla-cucullata}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- 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.