Reptilia · Squamata
Telescopus fallaxFleischmann, 1831
European Catsnake
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 120 cm nose to tail.
Also called Mediterranean Cat Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Telescopus
- Grows to
- 1200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 10years
Longer than 80% 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
- 2008
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 10years
Chen et al. 2021 (10 years), 10 in nature (Bar et al. 2021)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 800mm2 ft 7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 560mm22 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1200mm3 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 141mm5.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 150mm6 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 120.5g4.2 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 35.8g1.3 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1g0.04 oz
1200 mm total length, (Feldman et al. 2016, Naumov et al. 2020), max 853 mm, of which 800 mm is SVL, neonates 130-152 mm, 23-28g (Steinhardt Museum), max 74 cm (Kamali 2020 total length), Bar et al. 2021 (150-850 mm total length, globally to 1200; weight 1-101 g), 120 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, mean adult female SVL 560 mm, SMNH Aug 2023, n = 14), max 1 m, 0.8 in Russia (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
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
- Forest
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2200m
- Range size
- 1,294,483km²
rodents and lizards (Kamali 2020), "Small rodents, geckos, and lizards ground-breeding birds and their eggs form the main food " (Esterbauer 1985), lizards, snakes and arthropods (Bar et al. 2021)
Active (Feldman 2015)
Nocturnal (O'Shea 2018), cathemeral (Kamali 2020), strictly nocturnal (Bar et al. 2021), cathemeral (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
(O'Shea 2018), excellent climber but mostly terestrial (Bar et al. 2021)
0-2000 (O'Shea 2018), I saw them between near sea level on Greek islands to 1980 m on the Hermon, 1000-2200 (Kamali 2020), max 1800 m (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 6.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–11eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
Feldman et al. 2015
5-8 (O'Shea 2018), 5-11 (Bar et al. 2021), 6-9 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Telescopus fallax cyprianus BARBOUR & AMARAL 1927 Telescopus fallax fallax (FLEISCHMANN 1831) Telescopus fallax iberus EICHWALD 1831 Telescopus fallax pallidus STEPANEK 1944 Telescopus fallax syriacus (BOETTGER 1880)
- Described by
- Fleischmann
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- Italy
Keeping one
3 ft 11 in × 23.5 in × 2 ft 11 in(120 × 60 × 90 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 3 ft 11 in (1200 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 European 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.
14kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 120 g, the heaviest recorded for European 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 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 the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — 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 fallax. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/telescopus-fallax
@misc{telescopus_fallax_2026,
title = {Telescopus fallax},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/telescopus-fallax}
}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.