Burmese Python - Python molurus bivittatus

Habitat:
It can be found in grasslands, marshes, swamps, rocky foothills, woodlands, river valleys, and jungles with open clearings.
Range:
The Burmese Python is found throughout Southeast Asia including Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia.
Activity Cycle:
Nocturnal
Features:
Burmese Pythons are light-colored snakes with many brown blotches bordered in black down the back
Size:
The Burmese python is one of the largest snakes, on average growing between 15-20 ft and weighing up to 200 lb. Hatchlings are around 24 inches. Females are usually larger than males.
Social Structure:
Solitary
Diet:
Their diet consists primarily of appropriately sized birds and mammals.
Reproduction:
Burmese Pythons breed in the early spring, with females laying clutches which average 12–36 eggs in March or April. She will remain with the eggs for 60-80 days until they hatch, wrapping around them and twitching her muscles in such a way as to raise the ambient temperature around the eggs by several degrees. The young are mature at 3 years.
Status:
is near threatened according to IUCN, endangered according to USFWS, and is listed in appendix II of CITES.
Interesting Facts:
  • Excellent swimmer
  • Good climbers with prehensile tails
  • -Can be albino
  • A Burmese Python at Serpent Safari Park in Gurnee, Illinois, USA holds the record for heaviest living snake in captivity. As of 2005, it weighs 403 lb at a length of 27 ft.
  • Considered a primitive snake having two functional lungs and vestigial (left over) hind limbs.  These limbs look like spurs on either side of the cloaca.
  • Can swallow 4-5 times as wide as their head.
  • Can go for months wihtout eating.

Peoria Zoo