Reptilia · Squamata
Antaresia perthensisStull, 1932
Pygmy Python
Photograph by Connor Margetts, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 750 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Antaresia
- Grows to
- 750mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 25years
Longer than only 0% 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
43 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
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
- Longest recorded life
- 25years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 670mm2 ft 2 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 473mm18.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 750mm2 ft 6 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 449mm17.5 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 473mm18.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 172mm6.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 236.9g8.4 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 6.2g0.22 oz
600 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Esquerre et al. 2021 (max 670 mm SVL), max TL 750 mm (Barends and Naik 2023), Shine 1994 (hatchlings 17.2 cm, 5 males 39-56, mean 44.9 cm, 4 females 45-50.7, mean 47.3 cm SVL) , Shine 1994 (5 males 39-56, mean 44.9 cm SVL; 4 females 45-50.7, mean 47.3 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 172 mm)
snakes only in this source
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Ambush
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 31–892m
- Range size
- 670,028km²
lizards and mammals (Barends and Naik 2023)
Feldman 2015
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–10eggs
- Mean clutch
- 4.7eggs
- Egg length
- 42mm1.75 in
- Egg width
- 36mm1.5 in
- First breeds at
- 36months
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 4.7 (Meiri et al. 2019), up to 10 (Murphy et al. 2003), Shine 1994 (4-5, mean 4.7, n = 3 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Stull
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1932
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
2 ft 6 in × 15 in × 22 in(75 × 38 × 56 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 × 0.75.
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 2 ft 6 in (750 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Pygmy 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.
25kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 237 g, the heaviest recorded for Pygmy 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.
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 · 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
- — 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
- — 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 perthensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/antaresia-perthensis
@misc{antaresia_perthensis_2026,
title = {Antaresia perthensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/antaresia-perthensis}
}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.