Reptilia · Squamata
Malayopython reticulatusSchneider, 1801
Reticulated Python
Photograph by This photography was created by Mariluna. Other photos see…, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 790 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Malayopython
- Grows to
- 7900mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 35.3years
Longer than 97% 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
36 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
- 2011
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 35.3years
Stark et al. 2020 (19.4), Cox et al. 2012 (35 ytears, foiur months "plus 1 to 11 months" (captive; Cox et al. 2012)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 6080mm19 ft 11 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 7900mm25 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 1450mm4 ft 9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 88,947g196 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 92g3.2 oz
10000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 6350 (Barker et al. 2012: "Colossus truly was an immense, big-bodied, giant snake, but he was 6.35 m (20 ft 10 in) in total length, exceptionally long for a male python, but nowhere near as long as was generally reported"), Murphy 2020 lists 7.9m "Based on a captive held at the New York Zoological Society", several 7 m estimaes in Natusch et al. 2020, "Python reticulatus Schneider 1801 (N=48) were 0.84–5.5 m long (snout–vent length, SVL) and 1.2–18.0 cm maximum diameter." (Penning et al. 2015), Shine et al. 1998: 463 males 1370-4250 mm SVL mean 2525.3 (531.6) , 97 females 2100-6080 mm SVL, mean 3597.4, male mass 950-19300g mean 5900 g, female mass 2500-75000 g, mean 17639 g, hatchlings mass 112.57 g (Chen et al. 2021), Cox et al. 2012 (often over 7 m, recorded over 10 m, hatchlings 72-79 g, 1250-1650 mm - sounds long, but then it is a fucking reticulated python...)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1500m
- Range size
- 3,255,476km²
mostly mammals, also birds, fewer reptiles (Barends and Naik 2023), mammals and birds (Cox et al. 2012)
Sit (Glaudas et al. 2019)
Stark et al. 2018
Feldman 2015
0-1300 (O'Shea 2018), max 800 (Reed 2005), max 1500 (Cox et al. 2012)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 87eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 11–124eggs
- Mean clutch
- 23.8eggs
- Clutches a year
- 0.63per year
- First breeds at
- 36–48months
Feldman et al. 2015
50-124 (Whitaker and Captain 2004), 0ver 100 (Murphy et al. 2003), 50-100 (O'Shea 2018), 11-46, mean 23.82 (Shine et al. 1998), max 103 (Reed 2005), 15-124 (Cox et al. 2012)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Malayopython reticulatus reticulatus (SCHNEIDER 1801) Malayopython reticulatus saputrai (AULIYA, MAUSFELD, SCHMITZ & BÖHME 2002) Malayopython reticulatus jampeanus (AULIYA, MAUSFELD, SCHMITZ & BÖHME 2002)
- Described by
- Schneider
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1801
- Type locality
- Malaysia
Keeping one
25 ft 11 in × 13 ft × 19 ft 5 in(790 × 395 × 593 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 25 ft 11 in (7900 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 Reticulated 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.
4921kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 88,947 g, the heaviest recorded for Reticulated 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, 7 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
What each pairing produces → · Two genes at once →
- Dwarf and super dwarfbreeder consensus
Reduced adult size, from island populations rather than from a gene. How small an animal stays depends on how much of that ancestry it carries, so it is a proportion rather than a ratio — and a mainland-sized animal is a very large snake.
- Genetic Stripebreeder consensus
The net-like pattern replaced by clean stripes running the length of the animal.
- Golden Childbreeder consensus
Gold and orange lifted through the pattern, with reduced black along the back.
- Motleybreeder consensus
Pattern reduced and joined along the back, with the flanks left clear.
- Purple Albinobreeder consensus
No black pigment, with the remaining pattern in lavender and cream over white.
Worth knowing. There are separate albino lines in this species. The Purple and White albinos are different genes: pairing one with the other produces no albino offspring at all, only normal-looking young carrying a copy of each. Establish which line an animal comes from before pairing it.
- Tigerbreeder consensus
Pattern pulled sideways into bands, with the ground colour brightened. Two copies produce a Super Tiger, cleaner again and often nearly patternless down the sides.
- White Albinobreeder consensus
A separate albino line, holding far less colour and leaving a white and yellow animal.
Worth knowing. Not compatible with the Purple albino — the two lines sit at different loci, so a pairing between them yields no albinos.
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 female mean
- — 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 · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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). Malayopython reticulatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malayopython-reticulatus
@misc{malayopython_reticulatus_2026,
title = {Malayopython reticulatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/malayopython-reticulatus}
}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.