Reptilia · Squamata
Liasis olivaceusGray, 1842
Olive Python
Photograph by Alan Bell, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 400 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Liasis
- Grows to
- 4000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 11.3years
Longer than 68% 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
37 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
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 11.3years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 2550mm8 ft 4 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1901mm6 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 4000mm13 ft 1 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 1759mm5 ft 9 in
- Largest male · snout to vent
- 1901mm6 ft 3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 440mm17.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 8605.6g19 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 75.9g2.7 oz
4000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Murphy 2020 says max is 5.5m citing Whitlock (1923), Cogger 2014 lists "maximum about 4 metres", Lettoof et al. 2023 (SVL 1830 mm, mass 1140 g), Shine 1994 (23 males 100-252, mean 175.9 cm SVL; 24 females 108-255, mean 190 .1 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 440 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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 650m
- Range size
- 1,480,333km²
mammals and birds (Lettoof et al. 2023), mammals, lizards and snakes (Barends and Naik 2023)
Sit (O'Shea 2018)
Feldman 2015, Lettoof et al. 2023
0-650 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 19
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 7–31eggs
- Mean clutch
- 15.9eggs
- Egg length
- 74.3mm3 in
- Egg width
- 50mm2 in
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
mean 15.9 (Meiri et al. 2019, Lettoof et al. 2023), 7-31 (O'Shea 2018), Shine 1994 (8-30, mean 15.9, n = 6 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Liasis olivaceus olivaceus GRAY 1842 Liasis olivaceus barroni SMITH 1981
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1842
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
13 ft 1 in × 6 ft 7 in × 9 ft 10 in(400 × 200 × 300 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 13 ft 1 in (4000 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 Olive 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.
617kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 8,606 g, the heaviest recorded for Olive 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
- — 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
- — Fangs
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — 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
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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 olivaceus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liasis-olivaceus
@misc{liasis_olivaceus_2026,
title = {Liasis olivaceus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liasis-olivaceus}
}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.