Burmese Python
Burmese pythons, one of the largest snakes in the world, are best known for the way they catch and eat their food. The snake uses its sharp rearward-pointing teeth to seize prey, and then coils its body around the animal, squeezing a little tighter with each exhale until the animal suffocates. Stretchy ligaments in their jaws allow them to swallow animals up to five times as wide as their head!
- Common Name:
- Burmese Python
- Scientific Name:
- Python bivitattus
- Type:
- Reptiles
- Diet:
- Carnivore
- Average Life Span In The Wild:
- 20 to 25 years
- Size:
- 16 to 23 feet
- Weight:
- Up to 200 pounds
Burmese pythons are carnivores, eating mostly small mammals and birds. But exceptionally large pythons may search for larger food items like pigs or goats. Pythons have even been known to have attacked and eaten alligators! They have poor eyesight, so instead they stalk prey using chemical receptors in their tongues and heat-sensors along their jaws.
Burmese pythons are among the largest snakes on Earth. They are capable of reaching 23 feet (7 meters) or more in length and weighing up to 200 pounds (90 kilograms) with a girth as big as a telephone pole.
When they are young, Burmese pythons will spend equal time on the ground and in the trees. But are they grow larger they tend to stay on the ground because the trees can’t hold them anymore! They are also excellent swimmers and can stay submerged up to 30 minutes. The Burmese python is an invasive species in the Florida Everglades. According to the National Park Service, tens of thousands of these snakes exist there.
Females lay clutches of up to 100 eggs, which they incubate for two to three months. To keep their eggs warm, they continually contract, or shiver, their muscles. When the baby snakes hatch they use their special egg tooth to cut their way out of their egg and the mother leaves. The newly hatched baby python will often remain inside its egg until it finishes shedding its first shedding of skin, then it will hunt for its first meal all by itself.