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Reticulated python

NAME

Common Name:

Reticulated python

Scientific Name:

Python reticulatus

Class:

Reptilia

Order:

Serpentes

Family:

Pythonidae

Genus:

Python

Species:

reticulatus

Location:Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand Southeastern Asia and nearby Pacific islands; throughout the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Timor, Ceram, and the Philippines. Habitat:Tropical rainforests and subtropical savannas. Threat To Species:Overcollection and the limited range of the species makes it vunerable.

ENVIRONMENT

DESCRIPTION

General:

The reticulated python is one of the largest snakes in the world. The longest snake on record was a reticulated python measuring just over 32 feet long. The reticulated python is not venomous. Its body is colored by a mix of browns and tans with bluish-black areas and a network of criss-cross lines giving it the name "reticulated." Freshly shed individuals have a beautiful, iridescent blue sheen. The eyes of the reticulated python are orange or reddish with a vertical pupil.

Male:

Males and females have small differences in the size and shape of their tails.

Natural Diet:

Small mammals and birds; also large mammals including a few documented cases of large deer with antlers!

SIZE

Length:

Male/Female	15-20ft
	(4.57-6.1meter)

Weight:

Birth	10oz
	(285.71gm)

BEHAVIOR

Social:

The reticulated python is a solitary animal. Although the reticulated python has an aggressive feeding response, it does not have a confrontational or aggressive demeanor. Like all pythons, it is a constrictor, meaning that after it grabs hold of its prey, the snake wraps its coils around the prey and tightens. Rather than crush the prey, this suffocates it since the python squeezes so tightly the prey cannot breathe. Like all snakes, the python's remarkably flexible jaw then permits the snake to eat its prey whole. Reticulated pythons are also excellent swimmers and tree-climbers and have been reported in the open ocean.

Activity Time:

Nocturnal

Reproduction:

Reticulated pythons become sexually mature in the first 2 - 4 years. Males use pelvic spurs (tiny vestigial limbs) to stimulate the female to mate. Pythons mate by internal fertilization and the mating may last for many hours. The female will not eat after mating and before laying her eggs, nor during time her eggs are incubating after they are laid. Females lay up to 100 (but more often 30 to 50) fairly large eggs in a clutch 100 to 150 days after mating. The female will care for the eggs by coiling herself around them and shivering or twitching, which is believed to raise her body temperature and warm the eggs. The female will also defend the eggs against predators, but once hatched, the newborns are on their own.

GESTATION

Gestation Period:

100

Days

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Ways To Help:

The reticulated python is listed on the CITES Appendix II.

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Reticulated python

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