Reptilia · Squamata
Liasis fuscusPeters, 1873
(Brown) Water python
Photograph by Joshua Bishop, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A water-living, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 300 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Liasis
- Grows to
- 3000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 26.8years
Longer than 57% 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
48 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
Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 10,592, and Body mass (greatest) as 5,786.7 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever recorded. 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
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 26.8years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 28.2–31.5°C83–89 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 26.8–32.9°C80–91 °F
Stark et al. 2020
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 2200mm7 ft 3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1471mm4 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 3000mm9 ft 10 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 1305mm4 ft 3 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 1471mm4 ft 10 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 422mm16.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 41.3mm1.75 in
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 67.6g2.4 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 5786.7g13 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 10,592g23 lb
3000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), "to 3 m total length, 5 kg" (Shine and Madsen 1996), Lettoof et al. 2023 (1400 mm SVL, 1259 g), Shine 1994 (hatchlings 422 mm, 19 males 97-220, mean 130.5 cm, 24 females 105-212, mean 147.1 cm), Shine 1994 (19 males 97-220, mean 130.5 cm SVL; 24 females 105 .0-212, mean 147.1 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 422 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Ambush
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 12m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 50m
- Range size
- 1,268,050km²
"In our study area, the pythons feed almost exclusively on small mammals, mostly rats" (Shine and Madsen 1996), mostly mammals, also lizards, snakes, birds and eggs (Barends and Naik 2023)
(Cogger 2018, O'Shea 1996, Shine and Madsen 1996), but "Occasionally, pythons are seen active during the day, and gravid females often bask in full sun for hours" (Shine and Madsen 1996)
Scharf et al. 2015, Murphy et al. 2003
IUCN (0 to 50)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Gestation or incubation
- 67days
- Average clutch
- 13.5
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–24eggs
- Mean clutch
- 10–12.9eggs
- Clutches a year
- 0.3–1per year
- Egg length
- 60mm2.25 in
- Egg width
- 42mm1.75 in
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
mean=10 (Cogger 2018), mean 12.9 (Lettoof et al. 2023), Shine 1994 (3-24, mean 10.3, n = 10 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1873
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
9 ft 10 in × 4 ft 11 in × 7 ft 5 in(300 × 150 × 225 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.
Spends time in water, so a water area is part of the enclosure rather than a dish.
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 9 ft 10 in (3000 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 83–89 °F (28.2–31.5 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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 (Brown) Water 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 · shell length
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — 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). Liasis fuscus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liasis-fuscus
@misc{liasis_fuscus_2026,
title = {Liasis fuscus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liasis-fuscus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.