Reptilia · Squamata
Vipera ammodytesLinnaeus, 1758
Sand Viper
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 110 cm nose to tail.
Also called Nose-horned Viper.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Vipera
- Grows to
- 1100mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 30years
Longer than 71% of all vipers 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 280 to 3,900 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
43 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
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 30years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 21–30.7°C70–87 °F
Stark et al. 2020
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 744mm2 ft 5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1100mm3 ft 7 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 175mm7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 287.8g10.2 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 220g7.8 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 210.9g7.4 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 8g0.28 oz
1100 mm total length, (Feldman et al. 2016, Naumov et al. 2020, Lakusic et al. 2021), max SVL 740 mm (Lakusic et al. 2021), mean 650, max >800 total length (Tomovic et al. 2022; in their sample: "The largest island viper was а male 59.3 cm in SVL, and the largest female measured 48.6 cm in SVL. On the mainland, male snakes attained 74.4 cm in SVL and females 65.4 cm in SVL. Regarding total length, the largest island male attained 66.4 cm and the largest female 53.6 cm, compared with 84.3 and 72.8 cm for the largest mainland male and female, respectively", min SVL on islands conservatively [=upwards] estimated at 150 mm from Figure 1, Mean neonarte SVL "was lower in island vipers... mean SVL, 163.6 ± 0.3 mm (SE), N = 14 litters vs. 188.8 ± 0.4 mm", mean Female SVLs 382-605 mm, see table 3 for all data), max mass 1500 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History; but doubtful - 2nd heaviest 650g for a much longer animal, 3rd 402 g, 4th 211 g), see also Cubric et al. 2023 (means 73-114 g), Bonnet et al. 2023 (max TL 60-80 cm depending on the population)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 7–8.5months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2500m
- Range size
- 668,917km²
mostly birds and mammals (Andelkovic et al. 2021), "Diet changes with ontogeny (Martins & Lillywhite, 2019): juveniles feed predominantly on lizards, whereas the dominant food items for adults are small mammals or a combination of small mammals and lizards (Beshkov, 1977; Luiselli, 1996); birds and other prey are rarely consumed" (Tomovic et al. 2022)
Glaudas et al. 2019, Bonnet et al. 2023
(Stark et al. 2018), diurnal (Dyugmedzhiev et al. 2022b)
Scharf et al. 2015, SM pers. obs.
0-2500 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 7.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–20eggs
- Mean clutch
- 4.1–10eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.33–1per year
- First breeds at
- 36months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 1460days
Feldman et al. 2015, Bonnet et al. 2023
7, 4, 4-15 (Mallow et al. 2003, O'Shea 2011), 3-18 (O'Shea 2018), mean=10 (Shakoori et al. 2015), 5-17, mean 9.1, and 4-20 in the ltierature (Andelkovic et al. 2021), 4-20 in the literature, 1-17 in their data, means 4.1 and 7.3 but to 9.1 in the literature [Table 4] (Tomovic et al. 2022, Bonnet et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Vipera ammodytes ammodytes LINNAEUS 1758 Vipera ammodytes buchholzi CATTANEO 2021 Vipera ammodytes meridionalis BOULENGER 1903 Vipera ammodytes montandoni BOULENGER 1904
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Oriente
Keeping one
3 ft 7 in × 21.5 in × 2 ft 8 in(110 × 55 × 83 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 7 in (1100 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 Sand Viper. 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.
30kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 288 g, the heaviest recorded for Sand Viper — 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — 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
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Viperidae
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). Vipera ammodytes. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-ammodytes
@misc{vipera_ammodytes_2026,
title = {Vipera ammodytes},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-ammodytes}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.