Reptilia · Squamata
Aspidites ramsayiMacleay, 1882
Woma Python
Photograph by Brian Gratwicke, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 270 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Aspidites
- Grows to
- 2700mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 14.9years
Longer than only 49% 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
42 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Brown, Red
- Pattern on the back
- Blotched
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 14.9years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 2200mm7 ft 3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1583mm5 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2700mm8 ft 10 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 1521.5mm5 ft
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 1588mm5 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 390mm15.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 61.9mm2.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 5786.7g13 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 55g1.9 oz
2700 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Shine 1994 (hatchlings 39 cm SVL, 15 males: 100-220, mean 148.2 mm, 10 females 129-195, mean 158.3 cm SVL), Shine 1994 (15 males 100-220, mean 148.2 cm SVL; 10 females 129-195, mean 158.3 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 390 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
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 40–448m
- Range size
- 3,341,781km²
mostly lizards, also snakes, mammals and birds (Barends and Naik 2023)
Cogger 2018
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 14.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 12–16eggs
- Mean clutch
- 14.3eggs
- Egg length
- 85mm3.25 in
- Egg width
- 48mm2 in
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 14.3 (Meiri et al. 2019), Shine 1994 (12-16, mean 14.3, n = 3 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Macleay
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1882
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
8 ft 10 in × 4 ft 5 in × 6 ft 8 in(270 × 135 × 203 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 8 ft 10 in (2700 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 Woma 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.
434kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 5,787 g, the heaviest recorded for Woma 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, 2 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Albinobreeder consensus
No black pigment, leaving the banding in orange and cream with red eyes.
- Banding and colourbreeder consensus
How wide, how regular and how strongly contrasted the bands are, and how red the ground is. Selected within and between localities rather than carried by a single gene.
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 · 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
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — 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). Aspidites ramsayi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidites-ramsayi
@misc{aspidites_ramsayi_2026,
title = {Aspidites ramsayi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidites-ramsayi}
}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.