Dasypeltis gansi

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

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

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]

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

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]

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

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]

D. gansi is oviparous.^[3]

• Bates MF, Trape J-F, Spawls S (2013). "Geographical distributions: Dasypeltis gansi Trape & Mané, 2006, Gans' Egg-eater". African Herp News (60): 30–32.
• Göthel, Helmut (2015): "Die Pazifisten unter den Schlangen – Afrikanische Eierschlangen der Gattung Dasypeltis". Draco16 (61): 6–21. (in German).
• Trape J-F, Mané Y (2006). "Le genre Dasypeltis Wagler (Serpentes: Colubridae) en Afrique de l'Ouest: description de trois espèces et d'une sous-espèce nouvelles ". Bulletin de la Société Herpétologique de France119: 27–56. (Dasypeltis gansi, new species). (in French).
• Wallach V, Williams KL, Boundy J (2014). Snakes of the World: A Catalogue of Living and Extinct Species. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. xxviii + 1,209 pp. ISBN 978-1-4822-0847-4. (Dasypeltis gansi, p. 210).