Reptilia · Squamata
Morelia viridisSchlegel, 1872
Green tree python
Photograph by TarnishedPath, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A tree-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 200 cm nose to tail.
Also called Southern green python.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Morelia
- Grows to
- 2000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 20.6years
Longer than only 22% 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 3,113, and Body mass (greatest) as 2,458.5 — 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
- Colour on the back
- Green
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched, uniform
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 20.6years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1600mm5 ft 3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1285mm4 ft 3 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2000mm6 ft 7 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 304mm12 in
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 444.6g15.7 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 28.2g0.99 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 2458.5g5.4 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 3113g6.9 lb
Natusch et al. 2019, Feldman et al. 2016 (SVL & TL, respectively), Reed 2005 (max 1.5 m TL), Shine 1994 (hatchlings 30.4 cm SVL, 8 males, 84-116 cm, mean 100.3, 4 females 99-160, mean 128.5 cm SVL), Shine 1994 (8 males 84-116, mean 100.3 cm SVL; 4 females 99-160, mean 128.5 cm SVL; hatchling SVL 304 mm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2000m
- Range size
- 725,860km²
mostly lizards and mammals (Barends and Naik 2023)
Stark et al. 2018, Cogger 2018, O'Shea 2018
Cogger 2018, Murphy et al. 2003, O'Shea 2018
0-1800 (Murphy et al. 2003, O'Shea 2018), 0-2000 (O'Shea 1996), max 2000 (Reed 2005)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Gestation or incubation
- 56days
- Average clutch
- 12.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–30eggs
- Mean clutch
- 12.3eggs
- Egg length
- 38.7mm1.5 in
- Egg width
- 25.65mm1 in
- First breeds at
- 36months
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 12.3 (Meiri et al. 2019), up to 30 (Murphy et al. 2003), 8-30 (O'Shea 2018), max 17 (Reed 2005), Shine 1994 (6-19, mean 12.3, n = 4 clutches)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Schlegel
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1872
- Type locality
- Indonesia
Keeping one
4 ft 11 in × 3 ft 3 in × 9 ft 10 in(150 × 100 × 300 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 0.75 × 0.5 × 1.5.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 6 ft 7 in (2000 mm), at 0.75 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Green tree 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.
203kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,459 g, the heaviest recorded for Green tree 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, 2 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Albinobreeder consensus
No black pigment, leaving a yellow and white animal with red eyes. Rare in this species.
- Locality typebreeder consensus
Adult colour and pattern by population — how much blue, how much yellow, whether a dorsal stripe is held. This tracks where the ancestors came from and how they were selected, not a single gene.
Worth knowing. Green tree pythons hatch yellow, red or brick and change to adult colour over months to years. A photograph of a hatchling says almost nothing about what the adult will look like, and the change happens whatever the locality.
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 · snout to vent
- — 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
- — 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
- — How the young develop
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — 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
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — 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 viridis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/morelia-viridis
@misc{morelia_viridis_2026,
title = {Morelia viridis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/morelia-viridis}
}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.