Reptilia · Squamata
Telescopus hoogstraaliSchmidt & Marx, 1956
Sinai catsnake
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 105 cm nose to tail.
Also called Hoogstraal's cat snake, Hoogstraal’s cat snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Telescopus
- Grows to
- 1050mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 10years
Longer than 73% 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
- Endangered
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2006
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 10years
Bar et al. 2021 (10 in captivity)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 658.3mm2 ft 2 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 670mm2 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1050mm3 ft 5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 150mm6 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 150mm6 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 133.8g4.7 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 84.7g3 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 2g0.07 oz
1020 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Eid 2021 (750-1050 mm), Bar et al. 2021 (210-1020 mm total length, weight 2-150 g), 150 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, mean female SVL 670 mm, SMNH Aug 2023, n = 3, smallest juvenile: 150 mm), Spawls et al. 2023 (60-100 cm)
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
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 300–2280m
- Range size
- 9972km²
lizards, rodents, bats and birds (Eid 2021), lizards, snakes rodents and even birds (Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
Active (Feldman 2015)
Scharf et al. 2015, Eid 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023
Scharf et al. 2015, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023
300-2280 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 20eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
Bar et al. 2021, n = 1, also cited in Spawls et al. 2023
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Schmidt & Marx
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1956
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
Sinai catsnake is assessed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
3 ft 5 in × 20.5 in × 2 ft 7 in(105 × 53 × 79 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 5 in (1050 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 Sinai 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.
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 134 g, the heaviest recorded for Sinai 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
- — 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
- — 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). Telescopus hoogstraali. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/telescopus-hoogstraali
@misc{telescopus_hoogstraali_2026,
title = {Telescopus hoogstraali},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/telescopus-hoogstraali}
}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.