Reptilia · Squamata
Antaresia maculosaPeters, 1873
Spotted Python
Photograph by Stewart Macdonald (Smacdonald), CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 126 cm nose to tail.
Also called Cape York Spotted Python, Eastern Childrens Python, Eastern Small-blotched Python.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Antaresia
- Grows to
- 1259mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
Longer than only 8% of all pythons anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 750 to 7,900 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
39 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Length snout to vent (greatest recorded) is given as 1,320, and Length nose to tail (greatest recorded) as 1,259 — but snout to vent is part of the animal's total length, not more than it. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 841mm2 ft 9 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 240mm9.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1465.9g3.2 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 15.1g0.53 oz
- Length snout to vent · greatest recordeddisputed
- 1320mm4 ft 4 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recordeddisputed
- 1259mm4 ft 2 in
1000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Esquerre et al. 2021 (max 1220 mm SVL in A. m. maculosa and 1320 mm in A. m. peninsularis), Shine 1994 (hatchlings 24 cm, 38 males 50-112, mean 77.2, 24 females 62-110, mean 84.1 cm SVL), Shine 1994 (38 males 50-112, mean 77.2 cm SVL; 24 females 62-110, mean 84.1 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 240 mm)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 32–1104m
- Range size
- 655,173km²
"frogs, skinks, geckoes, small birds and rodents" (Esquerre et al. 2021)
Sit (Glaudas et al. 2019)
Cogger 2018, Esquerre et al. 2021
Arboreal&Terrestrial (Cogger 2018), primarily terrestrial (Esquerre et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 12.6eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–19eggs
- Mean clutch
- 12.6eggs
- Egg length
- 38.4mm1.5 in
- Egg width
- 24.1mm0.9 in
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 12.6 (Meiri et al. 2019), 4-19 (Esquerre et al. 2021), Shine 1994 (8-19, mean 12.6, n = 5 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Antaresia maculosa peninsularis ESQUERRÉ et al. 2021 Antaresia maculosa maculosa (PETERS 1873)
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1873
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
4 ft 2 in × 2 ft 1 in × 6 ft 2 in(126 × 63 × 189 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 1.5.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own total length of 4 ft 2 in (1259 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Spotted Python. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
128kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,466 g, the heaviest recorded for Spotted Python — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 3 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
What each pairing produces → · Two genes at once →
- Albinobreeder consensus
No black pigment, leaving tan and cream blotching with red eyes.
- Blotch size and contrastbreeder consensus
How large and how strongly edged the blotches are, and how dark the ground. Selected over generations rather than carried by one gene.
- Granitebreeder consensus
Blotches broken into fine speckling running the length of the animal.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Pythonidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Antaresia maculosa. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/antaresia-maculosa
@misc{antaresia_maculosa_2026,
title = {Antaresia maculosa},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/antaresia-maculosa}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.