Snake Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ snakes from around the world — with venomous status, family, range, size, habitat, and how to tell look-alikes apart.
Desert Massasauga
The smallest and most arid-adapted massasauga, found in dry grasslands and desert scrub of the southern plains.
Peringuey's Adder
A tiny, dorsally-eyed desert adder famous for sidewinding across the Namib's shifting dunes.
Western Massasauga
A small prairie rattlesnake with a lighter, more contrasting blotched pattern than its eastern relative.
Ruby-Eyed Green Pit Viper
A green pit viper of southern Indochina known for its distinctive ruby-red eyes.
Side-striped Palm Pit Viper
A slender green arboreal pit viper of Central American cloud forests, marked with a pale lateral stripe.
Levant Viper
A large, robust viper subspecies found across the Levant and Caucasus, closely related to the widespread Blunt-Nosed Viper.
Ridge-nosed Rattlesnake
A small, secretive rattlesnake of isolated 'sky island' mountain ranges, named for a distinctive ridge along its snout.
Puff Adder
A widespread, thick-bodied African viper responsible for more snakebite incidents than any other African species, largely due to its abundance and camouflage.
Schultze's Pit Viper
A green pit viper endemic to the Philippines, named after the naturalist Schultze.
False Horned Viper
A desert viper of the Middle East that mimics true horned vipers with supraocular scale projections, but belongs to a distinct genus.
Red Diamond Rattlesnake
A large pinkish-red rattlesnake of Baja California and southern California, marked with bold diamond blotches.
McMahon's Viper
A stout, sand-dwelling true viper with an upturned snout adapted for burrowing in loose desert dunes.
Copperhead Rattlesnake
Despite the informal name, a rattle-less pit viper with a distinctive coppery, hourglass-banded pattern found across the eastern US.
Horned Adder
A small desert adder with a prominent single horn-like scale above each eye, well camouflaged against sandy soils.
Armenian Viper
A striking, patterned mountain viper of the Armenian highlands, known for its bold blotched coloration and rocky high-altitude habitat.
Radde's Mountain Viper
A heavy-bodied highland viper of the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia, named after the naturalist Gustav Radde, and closely tied to the same species complex as the Armenian viper.
Russell's Viper
One of Asia's most medically significant vipers, known for its striking chain-like pattern and potent venom.
South American Bushmaster
The longest venomous snake in the Americas, a massive pit viper of Amazonian rainforest with a distinctive spined tail.
Red Adder
A recently described small viper with reddish coloration, endemic to mountain ranges of South Africa's Cape region.
Malabar Pit Viper
A highly variable, arboreal pit viper endemic to the biodiverse Western Ghats of India.
Common Adder
A small, widespread viper found across Europe and into northern Asia, notable for having the largest geographic range of any land snake species.
Beautiful Pit Viper
A striking green pit viper with a red-bordered lateral stripe found in southern Thailand.
Mexican Lance-headed Rattlesnake
A small rattlesnake of the central Mexican plateau notable for its distinctly narrow, lance-shaped head compared to most rattlesnakes.
Many-Horned Adder
A rocky-habitat adder distinguished by clusters of small spiny scales above each eye, unlike the single horn of related species.
Sahara Horned Viper
A desert-dwelling viper famous for the small horn-like projections above its eyes, well camouflaged against sand.
Gaboon Viper
One of the largest vipers in the world, with the longest fangs and the highest venom yield of any snake, yet remarkably placid in temperament.
Great Lakes Bush Viper
A medium-sized arboreal viper found in montane forests near the African Great Lakes, with variable green, blue, or yellow coloration.
Urutu
A heavy-bodied pit viper of grasslands and marshes in southern South America, known for its distinctive alternating dark blotches.
Sakishima Habu
A medium-sized venomous pit viper endemic to the Sakishima Islands of southern Japan.
Persian Viper
A rare and localized mountain viper endemic to a small area of the Alborz range in northern Iran.
Sand Viper
One of the smallest vipers in the world, a tiny desert adder famous for its sideways locomotion across the dunes of the Namib.
Pygmy Rattlesnake
A small, secretive rattlesnake with a faint, buzzy rattle often described as insect-like.
Berg Adder
A small mountain-dwelling viper of southern Africa notable for venom that primarily affects the nervous system, unusual among vipers.
White-Lipped Island Pit Viper
A striking island pit viper found across the Lesser Sunda Islands, notable for its variable turquoise, blue, or yellow coloration.
Large-Eyed Pit Viper
A green pit viper distinguished by unusually large eyes, found across forested regions of mainland Southeast Asia.
Brown-Spotted Pit Viper
A slender brown pit viper with a chain of dark blotches, found across a wide swath of South and East Asia.
Dusky Pygmy Rattlesnake
A tiny, common rattlesnake of Florida wetlands and pinelands, notable for its buzzy, insect-like rattle.
Levantine Viper
One of the largest and most medically important vipers of the Middle East and Central Asia, capable of delivering a substantial venom dose.
Sri Lankan Hump-Nosed Pit Viper
A small terrestrial pit viper of Sri Lanka and southern India, historically underestimated in medical significance despite its wide distribution.
Long-nosed Rattlesnake
A regionally used name sometimes applied to slender-snouted rattlesnakes of arid terrain, most often referring to the tiger rattlesnake.
Central American Bushmaster
One of the largest venomous snakes in the Americas, a massive, reclusive pit viper of Central American rainforests.
Yunnan Pit Viper
A green pit viper native to Yunnan Province in southern China and adjacent regions.
Taylor's Cantil
A distinctively patterned pit viper of northeastern Mexico, notable for its bright orange facial stripes.
Central Asian Saw-Scaled Viper
A subspecies of saw-scaled viper adapted to the arid steppe and desert basins of Central Asia.
Desert Horned Viper
An iconic desert viper of the Sahara and Arabian Peninsula, easily recognized by the small hornlike scales often present above its eyes.
Broad-banded Copperhead
A copperhead species with wide, saddle-shaped crossbands, common in woodlands and rocky habitats of the south-central states.
Sri Lankan Green Pit Viper
A vividly colored green pit viper found only in Sri Lanka's forests and hill country, notable for striking eye coloration.
Mexican West Coast Rattlesnake
One of the largest rattlesnakes in Mexico, inhabiting tropical dry forest and thorn scrub along the Pacific coast.