Reticulated python
Malayopython reticulatus
— Where the name comes from
Python is the monstrous serpent that in Greek myth guarded the oracle at Delphi and that Apollo killed: from its name comes that of the Pythia, the priestess. Reticulatus describes the back, a net of black, yellow and brown diamonds. Malayopython, coined in 2014, separates it from the true African and Asian pythons.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Squamates
- Habitat
- Rainforest, riverbanks, plantations, suburbs
- Range
- South-East Asia, from the Nicobars to the Philippines and Timor
- Size
- 400–600 cm, up to 700 cm; 75–160 kg
- Diet
- Mammals up to the size of a pig, birds
- Lifespan
- 20 years, over 30 in captivity
— Characteristics
- 01
It is the longest snake in the world.
- 02
It swims well and has colonised islands far from the mainland.
- 03
It has heat-sensitive pits along the upper lip.
— What sets it apart
Its skin is an industrial commodity: about half a million animals a year enter the luxury trade, and a single one yields bags and shoes worth thousands. Since 2013 several studies have checked that the offtake in Malaysia and Indonesia is not making the populations collapse — this species grows fast, lays many eggs and thrives in oil palm plantations — but traceability remains the problem: telling a legally harvested skin from a smuggled one is, once the bag is finished, practically impossible.
