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.
Colombian Rainbow Boa
A medium-sized boa prized for its iridescent sheen, which produces a rainbow-like shimmer on its scales under direct light.
Brown-Lipped Sea Krait
A widely distributed, boldly banded sea krait recognized by its dark upper lip, common on coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific and known for amphibious habits.
Argentine Rainbow Boa
A southern member of the rainbow boa group native to drier habitats of Argentina and neighboring countries, notable for its iridescent scales and relatively subdued coloration.
Red Pipe Snake
A glossy, burrowing pipe snake of Southeast Asia that flattens and raises its bright red-and-black banded tail to mimic a coral snake when threatened.
Common Lancehead
The most widespread lancehead of the Amazon Basin, a major cause of snakebite envenomation across tropical South America.
Wamena Green Tree Python
A high-elevation locality form of the green tree python from the Baliem Valley highlands near Wamena, one of the highest-altitude populations of the species.
Honduran Milk Snake
One of the largest milk snakes, native to Central America and known for its wide, vivid banding.
Eastern Hognose Snake
A harmless-to-humans, theatrical colubrid famous for flattening its neck like a cobra and playing dead when threatened.
Redbelly Water Snake
A heavy-bodied water snake with a plain dark back and a bright reddish-orange belly, common along ponds and swamps of the American South.
Sakishima Habu
A medium-sized venomous pit viper endemic to the Sakishima Islands of southern Japan.
Half-striped Wolf Snake
A small East Asian wolf snake with incomplete banding that fades along the body, harmless to humans.
Manokwari Green Tree Python
A locality form of the green tree python from the Manokwari area on the northern coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula.
Two-striped Garter Snake
A strongly aquatic garter snake of southern California streams, notable for lacking a middorsal stripe.
Parrot Snake
A slender, bright green, diurnal tree snake with large eyes, common throughout Neotropical forests.
Mountain Patch-Nosed Snake
A slender striped snake of rocky foothills and mountain canyons, closely related to the Western Patch-Nosed Snake.
Kotschy's Gecko Snake
A small, secretive colubrid of the Middle East specialized in feeding on geckos and other small lizards, rarely encountered due to its cryptic habits.
Rough-Scaled Sea Snake
A heavily built sea snake with distinctly rough, keeled scales, notable for possessing unusually large fangs and potent venom among sea snake species.
Black-Headed Snake
A tiny, secretive desert colubrid distinguished by a solid black or dark cap over the head, contrasting with its plain lighter body.
Rough-Scaled Bush Viper
A striking arboreal viper covered in unusually long, upturned, spine-like scales that give it a shaggy, bristly appearance.
Palau Ground Boa
A lesser-known Pacific ground boa whose taxonomy and precise range have historically been debated among herpetologists.
Sumatran Short-Tailed Python
A stout, heavy-bodied python from Sumatra known for its short tail and rich reddish coloration, part of the blood python group.
Slender Sea Snake
A slim-bodied sea snake found in tropical Indo-Pacific waters, with a tiny head and greatly elongated, thin forebody.
Black Mamba
One of the world's most feared snakes, the black mamba is Africa's longest venomous snake, renowned for its speed, potent neurotoxic venom, and the black interior of its mouth.
Texas Lyresnake
A slender, rear-fanged desert snake with large eyes and a distinctive lyre-shaped mark on top of its head.
Mexican Garter Snake
A wetland-dependent garter snake of the desert Southwest and Mexico, now rare across much of its northern range.
Persian Viper
A rare and localized mountain viper endemic to a small area of the Alborz range in northern Iran.
Rock Rattlesnake
A small, boldly banded rattlesnake of rocky mountain habitats along the US-Mexico borderlands.
Green Bush Rat Snake
A slender, bright green arboreal snake found in montane forests of Southeast Asia and southern China, well camouflaged among foliage.
Calabar Boa
A cylindrical, burrowing boa-like snake from West and Central Africa with a distinctive blunt tail used to confuse predators.
Spine-Bellied Sea Snake
A stout, small-headed sea snake with distinctly keeled belly scales, common in shallow tropical and subtropical waters and frequently caught as bycatch by trawlers.
Semi-ornate Sand Snake
A fast, slender, striped sand snake found across dry savanna and semi-desert regions of Africa.
Baja California Rat Snake
A smooth, glossy reddish-brown rat snake endemic to rocky canyons of the Baja California peninsula.
Broad-Banded Temple Pit Viper
A boldly banded temple pit viper endemic to the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Butler's Garter Snake
A small garter snake of the Great Lakes region, notable for its short head and worm-hunting habits.
Cat Snake
A slender, nocturnal, rear-fanged colubrid named for its vertically elliptical, cat-like pupils, found across South Asia and the Middle East.
Beauty Rat Snake
A strikingly patterned, long-bodied rat snake from East and Southeast Asia, prized for its glossy scales and bold longitudinal stripes near the tail.
Philippine Cobra
A highly venomous cobra endemic to the northern Philippines, notable for its potent venom relative to its comparatively modest size.
Hognose Snake
A theatrical, upturned-snouted colubrid famous for its dramatic bluffing displays, including hood-flattening, hissing, and playing dead.
Northern Death Adder
A stout, ambush-hunting elapid with a viper-like body shape, found across tropical northern Australia and New Guinea.
Boelen's Python
A striking black python with an iridescent sheen and cream banding, restricted to the mountainous highlands of New Guinea.
Salmon-bellied Racer
A slender, fast-moving racer named for its pale salmon or pinkish belly, common in Central American lowlands.
Choco Coral Snake
A tricolor coral snake of the biodiverse Choco rainforest region on Colombia's Pacific coast.
Great Plains Rat Snake
A gray-brown rat snake with dark blotches and a distinctive arrow-shaped mark on the head, common in the prairie states.
Jungle Carpet Python
A vividly patterned carpet python subspecies from Queensland's Wet Tropics, known for bold black-and-yellow contrasting markings.
Ijima's Turtle-Headed Sea Snake
A docile, egg-eating sea snake from the Ryukyu Islands with a blunt, turtle-like head and reduced venom apparatus.
Yellow Rat Snake
A striking striped rat snake variant found in the Deep South, typically yellow or olive with four dark longitudinal stripes.
Northern Eyelash Boa
A small, heavily keeled forest-floor boa from Central and South America named for the spiny scales above its eyes.
South American Coral Snake
A strikingly banded elapid of South American forests and wetlands, marked with the classic red-black-yellow triad pattern shared by many New World coral snakes.