All Angles Creatures
Squamata · PythonidaeEntry 13,365 of 21,572
South-western Carpet Python, Morelia imbricata

Reptilia · Squamata

Morelia imbricataSmith, 1981

South-western Carpet Python

Photograph by Connor Margetts, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

A meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 250 cm nose to tail.

ReptiliaSquamataPythonidaeMorelia

We do not have enough on this species yet

Catalogue of Life records this animal’s name, its family and where it sits in the tree of life. Beyond that, only 19 facts are on record — no diet, no lifespan, nothing we would be willing to publish as an entry.

So this page waits here rather than pretending to be one. It is not listed and not submitted to search engines. If you know this animal and can point us at a published source, we would rather have it right than have it soon.

Grows to
2500mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Weighs up to
6597.6g
greatest
Body length across Pythonidae

Longer than only 38% of all pythons anyone has measured.

38% of 37 species are smaller62% larger
750 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest7,900 mm

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

19 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

The animal itself

Limbs
None
Venomous
No

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
2310mm7 ft 7 in

Pearson et al. 2002 (max 2310 mm SVL), Barends and Naik 2023 (max 2500 mm TL)

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
2500mm8 ft 2 in

snakes only in this source

Body mass · greatestcomputed
6597.6g15 lb

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
3935g8.7 lb

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

mostly mammals and lizards, also birds (Barends and Naik 2023)

Region
Australo-Pacific
Mainland or island
Mainland

Breeding

Average clutch
21.6eggs
Clutches in a year
1per year

Naming and history

Suborder
Serpentes
Infraorder
Alethinophidia
Subspecies
No
Described by
Smith
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1981
Type locality
Australia

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
  • Hatchling length · nose to tail
  • Largest juvenile · snout to vent
  • Largest juvenile · shell length
  • Egg length
  • Egg width
  • Body mass · a typical adult
  • Body mass at hatching
  • Longest recorded life
  • Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
  • Eats arthropods
  • Eats vertebrates
  • Eats plant matter
  • How it hunts
  • Active
  • Where it lives
  • Reproduction
  • How the young develop
  • Gestation or incubation
  • Smallest clutch recorded
  • Largest clutch recorded
  • Mean clutch · smallest reported
  • Mean clutch · largest reported
  • 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
  • Conservation status
  • Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
  • Population trend
  • Red List criteria
  • Biome
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Habitat
  • Active in
  • Lowest it lives · above sea level
  • Highest it lives · above sea level
  • Range size

Others in Pythonidae

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  3. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.