How heavy would a Naga be?

Question

Those statues will be pretty darn heavy... but what about a flesh-and-blood naga? The torso of a human connected to a snake's body? I've seen some pretty extreme estimates on their weight... DnD thinks a 12 foot naga would weigh about 1500 pounds.

Let's do this

So, let's work some parameters for our Naga.

The Human Part

Weight

The human part, we'll use a 250 pound male. That is, 200 pounds if he had legs. Legs are approximately 40% of your weight (varies from person to person). Without his legs, that means the human torso weighs approximately 120 pounds.

Height

If our guy was 6 foot tall before, well, leg length is on average 45% of human height. That means he'd be 3' 04", approximately.

Properties of a snake

How heavy should a Naga be? Well, here's some snake trivia to help you decide.

Snakes can lift from one third, to one half of their bodies off the ground. Rearing up, like cobras do. Many snakes can move at full speed, with a third of their body off the ground. The Black Mamba is one of them.

I have not had time to do proper research onto the length of snakes relative to their weight.

Proportions

However, remember that the proportions of a snake are different from those of a human.

A snake's head is narrow and thin, with a small brain, and a long thin neck. The thickest and heaviest part of the snake is approximately a third of the way down its length. So, the first third of a snake is pretty light, and is the second thinnest section of the snake. The last third, the tail, is the thinnest and lightest section.

But, with a Naga... you have a big human head with a big brain, for starters. Then you have broad shoulders with long arms, with lots of bone and muscle. Then you have a broad torso. Instead of the front of the snake being the second-lightest part, it's going to be the heaviest section, almost certainly.

Also, to stay proportionate, the snake part that meets the human is going to have to be of similar thickness to the torso. If the snake part was very thin... it'd look a bit like this. And as much trouble as that woman has sitting down and moving around, it'd be far worse for a Naga, who would have most of its body mass choked-off by a very narrow area.

Thus, the proportions will be like this. Thick tail where it meets the torso (about a foot in diameter), which quickly narrows down to a thin tail. Thus, you'll need a pretty long, heavy tail in order to move the naga's upper body around.

So How much do they weigh?

Depends on how long we make the Naga, and the thickness/heaviness of the tail.

The barest possible minimum I figure, is 10 feet long (including the human torso). So that's 7 feet of snake, 3 feet of human, two thirds snake.

A more reasonable length would be 12 feet long. 1/4 length in human, 3/4 snake, approximately.

And on the far end, they could be 22 feet long (much longer would start to get unwieldy). 1/7th human, 6/7ths snake.

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I figure the most useful estimate would be one about the 12-foot Naga.

But, if you prefer, you can make weight estimates on one of the other examples, or one of a length of your choosing.

Answer 1

For a 3,65 m Naga, I would say 400-450 kg, approximately. I base that on the weight of a muscular man, of around 1.7 m in height (ca. 1/4), perhaps more, and the weight of a big Anaconda, enlarged (3/4). I would assume that 80 kg would be for a heavy man, and the rest for the snake (a bulky strong one), but that is an assumption. A female version would perhaps be smaller and lighter.

It depends on how the thing is made, biologically and how much weight a large backpart would be needed to move the heavier front, as you state.

Answer 2

An average US male is 69.1 in tall and 197.9 lb with a 40.2 in waist. the human torso is 53.33% of the total height (the legs are too, they overlap). I am going to cut it off right where the leg starts, so the torso will only be 46.67% of the height, which is 32.25 in. An adult male's torso and arms would be 83.3% of their total mass, or 164.9 lb. I am going to assume that the snake portion of the body is a cone with a base radius of 6.4 in (based on the waist circumference of 40.2 in). The human body has a density of 0.985 g/cm^3, I do not know about a snake, but it is likely similar.

The snake portion of a 10 ft naga would weigh 133.9 lb, with a total of 298.8 lb.

For a 12 ft naga, 170.6 lb and 335.5 lb.

For a 22 ft naga, 353.7 lb and 518.6 lb.

And from these measurements, I can estimate the weight of any length of naga.

Answer 3

Take the waist measurement, make that the diameter of an imaginary cylinder and the length of the snake body as the cylinder's length (tapering as you see fit) then calculate the volume and assume it's full of water, the body is mostly water and the influence of denser and less dense tissue (like bones and lungs) generally evens out.

Alternatively consult your local zoo for length/weight/diameter measurements of a snake of your choice then scale up the figures until the length seems about right.

Answer 4

Are you talking about 'real' nagas? They don't have 'weight' in the same way that material animals do, because, even though they often include a material dimension, they are not limited to a material dimension. Like many other beings, they are emergent rather than corporeal. The question you are asking is rather like asking how much 'Microsoft Corporation' weighs.