Vital Statistics
Latin Name : Lamprophis Fuliginosus
Length_F : 783 mm
Length_M : 656 mm
Order : Squamata
Family : Colubridae
Description : A large house snake with an obvious head and small body scales. It is uniform red-brown in colour. Large, old snakes are darker, almost black. There are 2 pale yellow streaks on the side of the head.
Class : Reptilia
Subspecies : A thin, pale, large-eyed form from the Namib and ProNamib may be a separate species.
Distribution : Throughout southern Africa and most of the continent.
Breeding : Up to 16 eggs are laid in summer, and these take 60 - 90 days to develop. Hatchlings measure 190 - 260 mm.
Lamprophis is a genus of colubrid snakes commonly referred to as African house snakes. They are small, non-venomous snakes, usually brown in color but display a range of variation from red, orange, green to black. They also exhibit a wide variety of pattern variation even within single species, they may be spotted, striped, or solid colored. House snakes are sexually dimorphic, the females grow significantly larger, to approximately 120 cm, some specimens have been recorded over 150cm, the males which only grow to approximately 75 cm.
Several Colour variants of L.capensis are known in captivity including T+ & T-Albino, Annerythristic, Hypo, Ilumo (Green) & Piebald.
Albino variants of L. aurora have been found.
An albino L. fuliginosus has been found in Tanzania & is now owned by Donald Schultz of
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