# Common wolf snake (*Lycodon aulicus*)

Canonical page: https://creaturedata.com/animals/lycodon-aulicus  
Data as of: 2026-11-14

The common wolf snake (Lycodon aulicus) is a species in the family Colubridae, order Squamata. Source checklists list it for 1 country: India.

## Quick facts

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Weight | up to 66.5 g |
| Length | up to 1.2 m |
| Lifespan | Not recorded |
| Diet | Carnivore |
| Main food | Not recorded |
| Habitat | forest |
| Young per litter or clutch | 7 – 7.5 |
| Reproduction | Eggs |
| Active | At night (nocturnal) |
| Lifestyle | Arboreal |
| Conservation status | Not recorded |
| Countries on record | 1 country |

## Introduced range

The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species lists it as introduced in 2 countries. Introduced: Mauritius, Philippines. Source: https://griis.org/ (CC BY 4.0).

## Classification

- kingdom: Animalia
- phylum: Chordata
- class: Reptilia
- order: Squamata
- family: Colubridae
- genus: Lycodon
- species: *Lycodon aulicus* (Linnaeus, 1758)

Synonyms: *Coluber aulicus*, *Lycodon atropurpureus*, *Lycodon aulicus oligozonatus*, *Lycodon subfuscus*, *Lycodon unicolor*, *Natrix aulica*, *Ophites aulicus*

## Countries on record

Countries where Catalogue of Life checklists list the species. Many checklists carry no country data, so the list is often incomplete. It is not a range map.

India

## Common questions

### Where does the common wolf snake live?

Catalogue of Life checklists list the common wolf snake for 1 country: India. Checklist coverage is uneven, so the true range may be wider.

### Is the common wolf snake an invasive species?

The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species lists the common wolf snake as introduced in 2 countries: Mauritius and Philippines, but does not flag it as invasive in any of them.

### What kind of animal is the common wolf snake?

The common wolf snake (Lycodon aulicus) belongs to the family Colubridae in the order Squamata.

## Sources

- [An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles](https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1), CC0 1.0, E096-269. Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1
- [Catalogue of Life eXtended Release](https://www.checklistbank.org/dataset/316691), CC BY 4.0, 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
- [Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (GRIIS)](https://griis.org/), CC BY 4.0, 2026-11-13. Pagad, S., Genovesi, P., Carnevali, L., Schigel, D. & McGeoch, M.A. (2018) Introducing the Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species. Scientific Data 5: 170202. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.202. Country checklists published through GBIF by the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group.
- [ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles](https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24572683.v4), CC BY 4.0, v1-2. Oskyrko, O., Mi, C., Meiri, S. et al. (2024) ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data 11: 243. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03079-5. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24572683.v4
- [SquamBase 1.0 - a dataset of squamate species traits](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3b), CC0 1.0, 1.0-dryad-v5. Meiri, S. (2024) SquamBase - a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography 33(4): e13812. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13812. Data: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3b

Cite as: Common wolf snake (Lycodon aulicus). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/lycodon-aulicus