Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

Dasypeltis gansi

Species of snake From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remove ads

Dasypeltis gansi, commonly known as Gans's egg-eater or Gans' egg-eating snake, is a species of non-venomous snake in the family Colubridae. The species is native to West Africa.

Quick Facts Conservation status, Scientific classification ...
Remove ads

Etymology

The specific name, gansi, is in honor of American herpetologist Carl Gans.[2]

Geographic range

D. gansi is found in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Republic of South Sudan, Senegal, Sudan, and Togo.[3]

Habitat

The preferred natural habitat of D. gansi is savanna, at altitudes from sea level to 600 m (2,000 ft).[1]

Description

Females of D. gansi may attain a total length (including tail) of about 92 cm (36 in) with the longest recorded specimen being 110.6 cm (43.5 in) long (including tail).[4] Males are smaller, and may attain a total length of about 70 cm (28 in). Dorsal coloration is almost uniformly beige.[3]

Behavior

D. gansi is terrestrial and partly arboreal.[1][3]

Diet

The diet of D. gansi consists entirely of birds' eggs.[1] They are capable of swallowing eggs 3-4 times larger than their head, possibly the largest gape of all snake species.[5]

Reproduction

D. gansi is oviparous.[3]

References

Further reading

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads