Reptilia · Squamata
Morelia spilotaLacépède, 1804
Carpet python
Photograph by Amos T Fairchild, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 400 cm nose to tail.
Also called Diamond Python.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Morelia
- Grows to
- 4000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 25years
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
43 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 15,926, and Body mass (greatest) as 7,728.2 — 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
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 25years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 25.1°C
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 2450mm8 ft
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1509mm4 ft 11 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 4000mm13 ft 1 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 1655mm5 ft 5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 320mm12.5 in
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 32.4g1.1 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 7728.2g17 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 15,926g35 lb
4000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016, Reed 2005), Lettoof et al. 2023 (SVL 1380 mm, mass 1592 g), , Shine 1994 (50 males 72-240, mean 129.8 cm SVL; 32 females 88-245, mean 150.9 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 320 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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1130m
- Range size
- 3,400,179km²
mammals (Lettoof et al. 2023), ~90% mammals, also lizards and bird eggs (Barends and Naik 2023)
Sit (Glaudas et al. 2019)
Stark et al. 2018, Hu et al. 2020, Lettoof et al. 2023
Arboreal&Terrestrial (Scharf et al. 2015, Cogger 2018), Arboreal (Lettoof et al. 2023)
0-1125 (O'Shea 2018), max 1750 (Reed 2005)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Gestation or incubation
- 63days
- Average clutch
- 16.2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–52eggs
- Mean clutch
- 11.5–16.2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.42per year
- Egg length
- 56mm2.25 in
- Egg width
- 37.9mm1.5 in
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 16.2 (Meiri et al. 2019), 9-52 (O'Shea 2018), mean 11.5 (Lettoof et al. 2023), max 43 (Reed 2005), 34 (Murphy et al. 1978, n = 1), Shine 1994 (6-38, mean 16 .2, n = 5 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Morelia spilota cheynei WELLS & WELLINGTON 1984 Morelia spilota harrisoni HOSER 2000 Morelia spilota mcdowelli WELLS & WELLINGTON 1984 Morelia spilota metcalfei WELLS & WELLINGTON 1985 Morelia spilota spilota (LACÉPÈDE 1804) Morelia spilota variegata GRAY 1842
- Described by
- Lacépède
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1804
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
13 ft 1 in × 6 ft 7 in × 19 ft 8 in(400 × 200 × 600 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 × 1.5.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 77 °F (25.1 °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.
561kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 7,728 g, the heaviest recorded for Carpet 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 →
- Albinobreeder consensus
No black pigment, leaving white, yellow and gold with red eyes.
- Axanthicbreeder consensus
Yellow pigment absent, leaving a black, grey and silver animal.
- Caramelbreeder consensus
Brown and caramel in place of black, with the pattern still clearly held.
- Granitebreeder consensus
Pattern broken into dense fine speckling across the whole animal.
- Jaguarbreeder consensus
Pattern reduced and pulled into bold, open markings over a lighter ground.
Documented health finding. Animals carrying a single copy of Jaguar — which is every animal sold as a Jaguar — are widely documented to show neurological signs: head-wobble, corkscrewing and disorientation, more pronounced under stress and while feeding. The severity varies between individuals, and it does not reliably improve with age. This is associated with the gene itself rather than being an occasional defect.
Documented health finding. Two copies are understood not to be viable. Breeding two Jaguars together is expected to lose about a quarter of the clutch, and every surviving animal from such a pairing that shows the morph is a single-copy Jaguar.
- Tigerbreeder consensus
Blotches stretched sideways into broken bands, with a cleaner ground between them.
- Zebrabreeder consensus
Markings drawn out into narrow, close-set bands running down the animal.
Documented health finding. As with Jaguar, the two-copy form is understood not to be viable, so a Zebra to Zebra pairing loses part of the clutch.
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 male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — 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 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
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — 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). Morelia spilota. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/morelia-spilota
@misc{morelia_spilota_2026,
title = {Morelia spilota},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/morelia-spilota}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.