Reptilia · Squamata
Python brongersmaiStull, 1938
Blood Python
Photograph by Rushenb, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 300 cm nose to tail.
Also called Malaysian Blood Python, Red Blood Python, Sumatran Blood Python.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Python
- Grows to
- 3000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 27.8years
Longer than 57% 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
34 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 (adult female, mean) is given as 4,190, and Body mass (greatest) as 3,632.1 — but an average female cannot outweigh the heaviest animal 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
- 2011
- Population trend
- Increasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 27.8years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1850mm6 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1439mm4 ft 9 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 3000mm9 ft 10 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 3632.1g8 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed
- 4190g9.2 lb
3000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 269 males, 272 females, mean SVLs 135,03& 140,18 cm, respectively, 3,62 & 4,19 kg, respectively, max 1800 mm SVL (female) estimated from Figure 3, Zug et al. 2011b (max 167 cm SVL in their sample, 185 cm from Shine et al. 1999), Keogh et al. 2001 ("Maximum length for the taxon approaches 2.6 m. Large females weigh 14-22 kg. In the sample of wild-caught snakes studied by Shine et al. (1999a), 1037 adult males averaged 132.4 cm snout-vent length (SD = 11.95) and 732 adult females averaged 143.9- cm SVL (SD = 11.82).", Natusch et al. 2018 (N. Sumatra males mean 99-166 cm SVL mean 132 cm SVL, mean 3.2 max 6.6 kg, females mean 139 range 102-172 cm SVL, mean 3.7 kg, max 9.3 kg; S. Sumatra: males 111-167, mean 134 cm SVL, mean 4.1 kg, max 7.6 kg, females 119-170, mean 140 cm SVL, mean 4.6 max 7.1 kg), Cox et al. 2012 (adults average 2500-3000 mm)
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
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1330m
- Range size
- 234,478km²
mammals, few birds (Barends and Naik 2023), mammals and birds (Cox et al. 2012)
Sit (Feldman 2015), mostly ambush (Cox et al. 2012)
Feldman 2015, Cox et al. 2012
Murphy et al. 2003, Cox et al. 2012
0-1330 (Feldman 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 19eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 10–29eggs
- Mean clutch
- 12.5–14.5eggs
- First breeds at
- 36months
Feldman et al. 2015
max=29 (Murphy et al. 2003), mean=12.5 (Feldman 2015), Natusch et al. 2018 (means 12.6-14.5, 10-25 from Figure 4), 10-15 (Cox et al. 2012)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Stull
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1938
- Type locality
- Singapore
Keeping one
9 ft 10 in × 4 ft 11 in × 7 ft 5 in(300 × 150 × 225 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 9 ft 10 in (3000 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 Blood 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.
287kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 3,632 g, the heaviest recorded for Blood 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, 4 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 orange and yellow blotches on cream with red eyes.
- Goldeneyebreeder consensus
Lighter overall with pale gold eyes. Two copies produce an Ivory — a near-patternless white to cream animal.
- Matrixbreeder consensus
Pattern broken into fine reticulation with the borders blurred and the reds lifted.
- Red intensitybreeder consensus
How deep and how extensive the red is, and whether it holds as the animal matures. Built up by selection over generations, and a blood python's colour also shifts markedly with mood and temperature.
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 · 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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). Python brongersmai. Retrieved 2026-09-09, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/python-brongersmai
@misc{python_brongersmai_2026,
title = {Python brongersmai},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/python-brongersmai}
}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.