carpet python

Fast Facts

Common Name: carpet python

Class: Reptilia

Order: Squamata

Family: Boidae

Genus species: Morelia spilotes variegata

Size: adults 2 to 3.6 m (6.5-12 ft.) in length, averaging 2.4 m (8 ft.); hatchlings 30 cm (12 in.)

Description: medium-sized python with black-to-gray patterns of blotches, crossbands, stripes, or a combination of these markings on a light yellowish-to-dark brown background

Life span: large bodied snakes can live more than 20 years, even longer in captivity

Incubation: up to 18 eggs hatch after an average of 40 days

Habitat: Australia (except western and extreme southeastern regions) and New Guinea. Found in a variety of habitats from eastern coastal rain forests to central desert areas.

Diet: a variety of warm-blooded vertebrates: birds, marsupials, and other mammals.

Status: not listed by USFWS, protected by CITES

Fun Facts

1. The name carpet python refers to this snake's beautiful markings which resemble an oriental carpet pattern.

2. Pythons are primitive snakes that have vestigial or leftover pelvic girdles and hind limbs that show up externally as a pair of "spurs" near the base of the tail. Male pythons use these spurs during courtship and mating.

3. Even though a carpet python is not warm-blooded, a female can raise her body temperature by twitching her muscles. This muscular activity creates enough warmth for her to incubate the eggs.

4. Depending on a particular carpet python's range, a terrestrial desert snake uses other animal's abandoned burrows in which to lay eggs while an arboreal or tree-dwelling forest snake uses tree hollows.

5. The incubation temperature of the eggs may determine a snake's sex just as it does in some other reptiles.

Ecology and Conservation

Many in the python family are collected from the wild for the pet trade while the adults are collected for their attractive skins and slaughtered for their leather. In many parts of the world, over-collection of these predators has resulted in ecological imbalances that often affect local people. Larger snakes frequently feed on nuisance animals such as rodents that impact crop yields as well as spread disease. Also, many important predators like birds of prey feed on young snakes. This means that snakes fulfill roles as both predators and prey in regional food chains.

Bibliography

Coborn, John. The Atlas of Snakes of the World. New Jersey: T.F.H. Publications, Inc. 1991.

Mehrtens, John M. Living Snakes of the World. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 1987.

Stafford, Peter J. Pythons and Boas. New Jersey: T.F.H. Publications, Inc., 1986.

Last Update 9/96

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