Reticulated Python
The reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus) is the world's longest snake. The largest wild python ever measured scientifically was 6.95 meters long, and a captive female named Medusa reached 7.67 meters and 158.8 kg. It is native to South and Southeast Asia, from India's Nicobar Islands and Bangladesh to the Philippines and Indonesia, where it lives in rainforests, swamps, riverbanks and farmland, and even in cities. The species is an ambush predator that kills by constriction, coiling around prey until blood flow stops. Small pythons eat mostly rats, while large ones take monkeys, pigs, deer and even a sun bear. Its intricate net-like pattern, which gives it its name, breaks up its outline in dense vegetation. Though it carries no venom, it is one of very few snakes known to have killed and eaten people. Hunting for the skin trade and habitat loss are the main pressures on wild populations.
What is a reticulated python?
The reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus) is a giant, non-venomous constrictor from South and Southeast Asia and the longest snake in the world. Its name describes its pattern: reticulatus is Latin for "net-like", after the complex network of black lines, gold, tan and brown diamonds and pale spots that covers its back and breaks up its outline among leaves and shadows. Fans and keepers often shorten the name to "retic". The species was described in 1801 by the German naturalist Johann Gottlob Schneider, from two specimens in the Göttingen museum, and for most of its history it was placed in the genus Python. In 2014 a genetic study by Graham Reynolds and colleagues moved it to its own genus, Malayopython, which it shares with a much smaller relative, the Timor python. Despite its huge size, the reticulated python is a slender, agile snake compared with the heavy bodied anacondas and Burmese pythons. It is also remarkably variable. On some small Indonesian islands it has evolved dwarf forms, such as those of Tanahjampea, which barely exceed 2 meters, and Selayar, which reportedly stay under 4 meters.
How big do reticulated pythons get?
No other snake matches the reticulated python for length, but real measurements are smaller than the legends. In a study of wild pythons harvested in Sumatra, snakes ranged from 1.5 to 6.5 meters and from 1 to 75 kilograms, and females grow larger than males. The largest wild python ever measured scientifically was caught near Balikpapan, in Indonesian Borneo: it was 6.95 meters long and weighed 59 kilograms. The record for a living snake belongs to Medusa, a captive female in Kansas City, measured in 2011 at 7.67 meters and 158.8 kilograms and listed by Guinness World Records as the longest verified snake in captivity. Many older claims do not hold up. Colossus, a famous zoo python once said to be 8.7 meters, turned out to measure 6.35 meters as a skeleton, and reports of 8.5 meters from Penang in 1859 or almost 10 meters from Sulawesi in 1912 were never verified. Because it is slim for its length, the reticulated python is only the third heaviest snake, behind the green anaconda of South America and the Burmese python. Even so, a large one is among the most powerful predators in Asia.
Where do reticulated pythons live?
The reticulated python has one of the widest ranges of any large snake in Asia. In the west it reaches the Nicobar Islands of India and the eastern hill forests of Bangladesh, around Sylhet and Chittagong. From there it spreads through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, south through Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, and across the islands of Indonesia, including Sumatra, Java, Bali, Borneo, Sulawesi, the Lesser Sunda Islands and Maluku, as well as Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak and much of the Philippines. In Timor-Leste the IUCN lists it as possibly extinct. It is native to all of this region and nowhere else. Reticulated pythons are tied to water: they live in tropical rainforest, woodland, swamps, mangroves and nearby grassland, nearly always close to rivers, streams and lakes. They are also excellent swimmers, have been seen far out at sea and have colonized many small islands. They adapt well to people, too. They thrive around rice paddies, oil palm plantations and villages where rats are plentiful, and they turn up regularly in cities such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, often in drains, canals and gardens.
What do reticulated pythons eat?
What a reticulated python eats depends above all on its size. Smaller pythons, up to about 3 or 4 meters, feed mainly on rats and other rodents, bats, treeshrews and birds, which is why so many live around farms and villages. As they grow, they switch to much larger prey: civets, binturongs, monkeys and other primates, wild pigs and deer of more than 60 kilograms. A python can swallow an animal up to about a quarter of its own length and up to its own weight. The largest documented meal was a 23 kilogram sun bear eaten by the 6.95 meter python from Balikpapan, which took about 10 weeks to digest. The reticulated python is an ambush hunter. It waits motionless along trails or at the water's edge, hidden by its patterned skin, and senses warm blooded prey even in the dark with heat sensitive pits on its lips. It strikes fast, grips with its many backward curving teeth and throws coils around the animal, tightening them until blood flow stops and the prey dies within minutes. After a big meal it may go weeks or months without eating.
Can a reticulated python kill a human?
Yes. The reticulated python is one of very few snakes known to kill and eat adult humans, and the only one for which there is photographic and video proof. Most confirmed cases come from Indonesia, especially Sulawesi. In March 2017 a 25 year old farmer was found inside a 7 meter python near Mamuju, the first fully confirmed case of a person swallowed by a python; in June 2018 a 54 year old woman was killed by another 7 meter python on Muna Island, and several more deaths have been recorded since, including a number in 2024. Fatal attacks have also been reported in the Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Bali, and in 2008 a pet python of about 4 meters killed its owner in Virginia Beach, in the United States. A classic study of the Agta, hunter gatherers of Luzon in the Philippines, found that about one in four adult men had survived a python attack and recorded six deaths over roughly 40 years. Even so, attacks are rare for a snake so common. Reticulated pythons are known as more nervous and quicker to bite than Burmese pythons, and most bites to people are defensive, from snakes that are cornered, handled or captured. Large ones should always be left alone.
Behavior and reproduction
For most of the day, a reticulated python rests in a hidden spot, such as a burrow, a hollow log, dense vegetation or a riverbank, relying on its net-like pattern to stay unseen. It becomes more active after dark, moving slowly through its home range or waiting in ambush. It is a solitary snake and a strong swimmer that often lies in water and crosses rivers, flooded fields and even stretches of sea with ease, which helps explain how it reached so many islands. The reticulated python lays eggs, and a female produces clutches of 15 to 80, depending on her size. She coils around the eggs and stays with them, guarding them until they hatch, which at about 31 to 32 °C takes an average of 88 days. The hatchlings are already at least 61 centimeters long and are independent from the start. Young pythons grow fast when food is plentiful. In captivity, reticulated pythons can live for more than 20 years.
Is the reticulated python endangered?
No. The IUCN lists the reticulated python as Least Concern, in an assessment from 2018, thanks to its huge range and its ability to live in farmland, plantations and even cities. That does not mean it is free of pressure. It is one of the most economically important reptiles in the world: hundreds of thousands of python skins are exported from Southeast Asia every year, mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia, to be made into bags, shoes, belts and watch straps. International trade is regulated under CITES Appendix II, and Indonesia and Malaysia set harvest quotas, but illegal hunting and smuggling continue. Pythons are also killed for meat and traditional medicine, captured for the pet trade and killed out of fear when they enter villages and towns. Studies of the skin harvest in Indonesia and Malaysia suggest that, because pythons grow fast and breed young where rats are abundant, the species withstands heavy hunting better than many other large reptiles, as long as quotas are respected. Forest loss is a growing threat in some regions. In the United States, the reticulated python has been listed as an injurious species since 2015, which bans its import to prevent it from becoming invasive like the Burmese python in Florida.
