Reptilia · Squamata
Telescopus dharaForskål, 1775
Israeli Catsnake
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 190 cm nose to tail.
Also called Arabian Cat Snake, Large-Eyed Cat Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Telescopus
- Grows to
- 1900mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 3.7years
Longer than 95% 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
38 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
- 2014
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 3.7years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 731mm2 ft 5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1900mm6 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 193mm7.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 229.5mm9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 541g1.2 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 19.4g0.68 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3g0.11 oz
snakes only in this source
1900 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Carranza et al. 2021 (max 1200), max 1900 in Israel 220-1320 (Bar et al. 2021), Eid 2021 (600-950 mm), 175 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, 1 female 453 mm SVL, nenoates 186-200 mm SVL, 221-238 mm total length, 2.4-3.6 g), Spawls et al. 2023 (50-132 cm, hatchlings 16-20 cm, all look too short for dhara)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Habitat
- Savanna
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2300m
- Range size
- 472,564km²
mainly lizards, also birds and bats (Carranza et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023), birds, snakes and lizards (Bar et al. 2021), "lizards, rodents, bats and birds" (Eid 2021), same in Malonza and Bwong 2023 for somalicus
(Carranza et al. 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Eid 2021, Malonza and Bwong 2023 - as somalicus), nocturnal and crepuscular (Spawls et al. 2023)
Semi Arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018, Eid 2021, Malonza and Bwong 2023 as somalicus, Spawls et al. 2023), arboreal and saxicolous (Carranza et al. 2021, Bar et al. 2021)
0-2300 (Carranza et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 12.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–20eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
Feldman et al. 2015
6-20 (Carranza et al. 2021), perhaps as many as 20 (Bar et al. 2021), 7-10 (Eid 2021), up to 10 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Telescopus dhara dhara (FORSKAL 1775) Telescopus dhara somalicus (PARKER 1949)
- Described by
- Forskål
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1775
- Type locality
- Yemen
Keeping one
6 ft 3 in × 3 ft 1 in × 9 ft 4 in(190 × 95 × 285 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 × 1.5.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 6 ft 3 in (1900 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Israeli Catsnake. 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.
53kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 541 g, the heaviest recorded for Israeli Catsnake — 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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). Telescopus dhara. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/telescopus-dhara
@misc{telescopus_dhara_2026,
title = {Telescopus dhara},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/telescopus-dhara}
}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.