Snake Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ snakes from around the world — with family, range, size, habitat, and how to tell similar species apart.
Banded Malaysian Coral Snake
A small, slender coral snake of Southeast Asian forests, marked with fine dark crossbands and a red underside, that spends most of its life hidden underground.
Dog-toothed Cat Snake
A large, boldly patterned nocturnal tree snake of Southeast Asian forests, named for its notably elongated front teeth.
Spotted Leaf-Nosed Snake
A small nocturnal desert snake named for its enlarged, leaf-shaped rostral scale used to dig for buried lizard eggs.
Afro-Asian Sand Snake
A slim, fast-moving diurnal sand snake distributed across arid regions of Africa and Asia.
Southern Shovel-Nosed Snake
A small burrowing elapid from southern and western Australia with a distinctive banded pattern and a shovel-shaped snout for digging through sand.
Small-Headed Sea Snake
A slender sea snake with a strikingly tiny head and narrow forebody widening toward the rear, found in shallow coastal waters across the Indo-Pacific.
Hook-Nosed Sea Snake
A sea snake found in murky coastal and estuarine waters across the Indo-Pacific, notable for its distinctive hooked snout.
Northern Cat-eyed Snake
A nocturnal colubrid named for its vertical, cat-like pupils.
Mexican Wandering Garter Snake
A wide-ranging highland garter snake of western Mexico, adaptable to a variety of montane stream and forest habitats.
Japanese Four-lined Rat Snake
A common Japanese rat snake marked with four dark longitudinal stripes running the length of its body, frequently seen in fields and gardens.
Big Bend Patch-Nosed Snake
A desert colubrid with an enlarged, upturned rostral scale used for digging, marked by a bold pale vertebral stripe.
Trans-Pecos Black-Headed Snake
One of the largest black-headed snakes, a slender tan species with a bold black hood found in West Texas canyon country.
Ijima's Turtle-Headed Sea Snake
An egg-eating sea snake from the Ryukyu Islands with a blunt, turtle-like head.
Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake
A slender, arid-adapted sand snake of southwestern Africa distinguished by its bright yellow underside and swift diurnal foraging.
Speckled Racer
A fast, alert colubrid with a striking pattern of pale speckles or crossbars on a dark, glossy body.
Black Kingsnake
A largely uniform glossy black kingsnake found in the central and southeastern United States, sometimes showing faint traces of pattern.
Black-headed Centipede-eater
A small, secretive African burrower named for its glossy black head and its diet of centipedes.
Yellow-tailed Cribo
A large, powerful South American colubrid related to indigo snakes, known for its glossy scales and impressive length.
Mexican Black Kingsnake
A striking, almost entirely jet-black kingsnake from northwestern Mexico, notable for its uniform glossy appearance.
Texas Threadsnake
A small, glossy, burrowing thread snake native to Texas and adjacent Mexico, spending nearly its entire life underground feeding on ant and termite brood.
Speckled Kingsnake
A glossy black kingsnake speckled with small yellow spots on nearly every scale, giving it a salt-and-pepper appearance.
Black Mussurana
A large, glossy black colubrid widespread across Latin America, famed for eating other snakes, including vipers and coral snakes.
Black Swampsnake
A small, glossy black wetland snake with a bright red-orange belly, found in dense marsh vegetation of the southeastern coastal plain.
Desert Cobra
A glossy black, primarily nocturnal elapid found in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.