Reptilia · Squamata
Trachischium guentheriBoulenger, 1890
Günther’s Worm-eating Snake
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 525 mm nose to tail.
Also called Rosebelly Worm-eating Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Colubridae › Trachischium
- Grows to
- 525mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
Longer than only 36% 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
37 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
- Vulnerable
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Fangs
- At the back of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 445mm17.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 525mm20.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 88mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 100mm4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 43.32g1.5 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 12.2g0.43 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.5g0.02 oz
525 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Chettri et al. 2009 ("Mean SVL, TL, and Wt of 360 snakes measured 274.6 ± 77.5 mm, 50.9 ± 15.1 mm, and 10.41 ± 5.72 g, respectively. The SVL, TL, and Wt of the largest and smallest snakes were 445 mm, 80 mm, and 25 g and 88 mm, 12 mm, and 0.5 g, respectively. Individuals with 100 mm in total length were considered as hatchling size of this species."; 91 females, 145 – 428, mean 304.4 ± 41.9 mm SVL, 1.5 – 25, mean 12.2 ± 4.7 g; 55 males 129 – 376, mean 278.0 ± 61.8 mm SVL, 1 – 22, mean 10.1 ± 5.1 g)
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
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Rocky
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–8months
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 900–2680m
- Range size
- 314,389km²
vermivore (Deepak et al. 2022), arthropods and worms (Pradhan et al. 2022)
Wang et al. 2023
Feldman 2015
Terrestrial (Feldman 2015, see also Pradhan et al. 2022: "we observed an adult U. flavirostris swoop down from a tree branch and catch an adult T. guentheri from the litter laden forest floor")/Fossorial (Deepak et al. 2022, Chettri et al. 2009)
900-2675 (Pradhan et al. 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–4eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
mean=5.2 (Feldman 2015), min 2 per location max 4 per clutch (Chettri et al. 2009); the 5.2 vlue is per nest - not per clutch, they write: "Number of eggs in each location varied from 2 to 130 (X = 5.2 ± 37.22, n = 10)... Clumping of eggs and their placement in the nesting sites showed that the maximum clutch size of this species as four, which was confirmed by number of eggs present in six road-killed specimens examined."
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Boulenger
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1890
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
Günther’s Worm-eating Snake is assessed as Vulnerable 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.
20.5 in × 10.5 in × 15.5 in(53 × 26 × 39 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 10.5 in (26 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 20.5 in (525 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 Günther’s Worm-eating 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.
6kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 43 g, the heaviest recorded for Günther’s Worm-eating 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
- — 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
- — 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 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
- — Venomous
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Pattern on the back
- — Sex decided by
- — 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). Trachischium guentheri. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachischium-guentheri
@misc{trachischium_guentheri_2026,
title = {Trachischium guentheri},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachischium-guentheri}
}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.