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.
Black-tailed Rattlesnake
A calm-tempered rattlesnake of the southwestern deserts and mountains, easily identified by its solid black tail.
Mole Kingsnake
A secretive, burrowing kingsnake subspecies with a faded, blotched pattern that grows more obscure with age.
Amazonian Coral Snake
A large tricolor coral snake of the Amazon rainforest with broad black, red, and white/yellow ring triads.
Narrow-headed Garter Snake
A highly aquatic, fish-eating garter snake of clear mountain streams, notable for its unusually narrow head.
Lined Snake
A small, garter snake-like colubrid of the central United States, identified by a double row of dark half-moon belly markings.
Louisiana Pine Snake
One of North America's rarest snakes, a large burrowing constrictor tied closely to pocket gopher burrows in longleaf pine forests.
Red-Headed Krait
A large, vividly colored krait of Southeast Asian rainforests, notable for its glossy black body, bright red or orange head and tail, and thin blue vertebral stripe.
Speckled Brown Snake
A medium-sized brown snake species from the interior of Queensland, named for the fine speckled pattern often present on its scales.
Green Anaconda
One of the world's heaviest snakes, a massive semi-aquatic constrictor of South American rivers and wetlands.
Highland Garter Snake
A cold-tolerant garter snake found at high elevations in central Mexico's mountain grasslands and pine forests.
Amazon Tree Boa
A slender, highly variable arboreal boa of the Amazon rainforest, known for its extraordinary range of color morphs and prehensile, tree-dwelling lifestyle.
Common Glossy Racer
A widespread, smooth-scaled racer with a glossy sheen, found across a broad swath of Neotropical habitats.
Afro-Asian Sand Snake
A slim, fast-moving diurnal sand snake distributed across arid regions of Africa and Asia, mildly venomous but not medically significant to humans.
Dekay's Brownsnake
A tiny, secretive brown snake commonly found in gardens and vacant lots across much of eastern North America.
Long-Nosed Viper
Europe's most venomous snake, easily recognized by the small, soft nasal horn on the tip of its snout.
Elegant Bronzeback
A vividly colored, slender tree snake of Southeast Asian rainforests, known for its metallic bronze back and striking blue-and-black flanks.
Painted Coral Snake
A vividly ringed coral snake of the South American Atlantic Forest, notable for its black snout and tricolor banding pattern.
Eastern Indigo Snake
The longest native snake in North America, a glossy blue-black giant known for its docile nature and association with gopher tortoise burrows.
Cardamom Mountains Green Pit Viper
A green pit viper restricted to the Cardamom Mountains region of Cambodia, a biodiversity-rich range in Indochina.
Texas Coral Snake
A brightly ringed coral snake of Texas, Louisiana, and northeastern Mexico, closely related to and long considered a subspecies of the eastern coral snake.
Sidewinder
A small desert rattlesnake famous for its unique sideways locomotion, which minimizes contact with scorching sand.
Cape Wolf Snake
A small, nocturnal African colubrid named for its enlarged, fang-like front teeth used to grip smooth-scaled reptile prey such as lizards and other snakes.
Greater Black Krait
A large, uniformly dark krait of the eastern Himalayan foothills and adjacent lowlands, lacking the strong banding seen in many of its relatives.
Cat-Eyed Water Snake
A small, secretive mangrove snake from Asia with distinctive vertical pupils, specialized in feeding on crabs.
Variable Sand Snake
A small burrowing desert snake closely related to the banded sand snake, showing variable banding intensity across its Sonoran Desert range.
Southern Copperhead
A common, well-camouflaged pit viper of southern woodlands, responsible for many defensive bites due to its cryptic pattern.
Beaked Sea Snake
A highly venomous, fully aquatic sea snake often entangled in fishing nets, considered responsible for many sea snake bite incidents.
Rim Rock Crowned Snake
A rare, tiny Florida endemic snake with a dark crown-like head cap, restricted to limestone rockland habitat.
Eyelash Viper
A small, arboreal pit viper famous for the raised scales above its eyes and its wide range of color morphs.
Short-Nosed Sea Snake
A small, rare sea snake with a short blunt snout, historically known from a few reef systems off Western Australia and now considered of high conservation concern.
Kenyan Sand Boa
A stout, burrowing boa of East African savannas and deserts, recognized by its bold saddle-like pattern and spade-shaped head suited for digging through sand.
Semiornate Snake
A large, patterned African bush snake with cross-barring on the neck, harmless to humans and one of the bigger species in its genus.
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.
Red Whip Snake
A slender, reddish-toned whip snake found in arid regions of the Middle East, recognized by its fast movement and warm coloration.
Eastern Kingsnake
A glossy black snake marked with narrow chain-like yellow or white bands, famed for preying on venomous snakes.
New Guinea Small-Eyed Snake
A large, potent elapid found in New Guinea, notable for its small eyes and highly variable coloration.
Brown's Coral Snake
A tricolor coral snake of Pacific-slope forests in southern Mexico and northern Central America.
Big Bend Black-Headed Snake
A small, reddish-brown desert snake with a dark head cap, found in rocky canyons of the Big Bend region.
California Lyresnake
A slender, rock-dwelling nocturnal snake with cat-like vertical pupils and a lyre-shaped head marking.
Arizona Black Rattlesnake
A darkly colored montane rattlesnake of central Arizona known for its ability to darken further with age and altitude.
Ceylon Krait
A slender, endemic krait restricted to Sri Lanka, marked with narrow pale crossbands on a dark body and considered medically important on the island.
Mexican Black Kingsnake
A striking, almost entirely jet-black kingsnake from northwestern Mexico, notable for its uniform glossy appearance.
Desert Blind Snake
A tiny, worm-like burrowing snake of the American Southwest deserts with vestigial eyes hidden beneath translucent scales.
Sind Krait
A highly venomous krait of the Indus Valley region, closely related to the Common Krait and possessing similarly potent neurotoxic venom.
Rinkhals
A distinctive southern African elapid, related to but taxonomically separate from true cobras, known for spitting venom, feigning death, and giving birth to live young.
Yellow-blotched Palm Pit Viper
A green arboreal pit viper of Guatemalan and Chiapan cloud forests, marked with pale yellow blotches along its back.
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.
Palestine Viper
A heavy-bodied viper of the Levant considered the most medically significant venomous snake in its range.