Reptilia · Squamata
Python natalensisSmith, 1840
Lesser African Python
Photograph by Ryan van Huyssteen, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Afrotropic region, reaching 560 cm nose to tail.
Also called Southern African Python.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pythonidae › Python
- Grows to
- 5600mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 27.3years
Longer than 81% 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
35 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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 27.3years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 5000mm16 ft 5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 5600mm18 ft 4 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 600mm23.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 52,581g116 lb
- Body mass at hatching
- 131.8g4.6 oz
6000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), 5.6 m (Murphy 2020), average 3000-4000 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), Pietersen et al. 2021 (max male SVL 4250 mm, max female SVL 5000 mm, hatchlings 450-750 mm TL), Marais 2022 (adults average 3-4 m, exceptionally 6 m "but specimens over 5 m are rare nowadays"; hatchlings 50-70 cm), Trape 2023 (adults 3-4 m, could reach around 6, hatchlings 450-600 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
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1800m
- Range size
- 5,143,623km²
birds, eggs, mammals, monitors and crocodiles (Marais 2022), mammals and birds (Barends and Naik 2023)
(van Huyssteen 2023), adults sit and wait, juveniles active foragers (Trape 2023)
"Specimens were sighted sunning themselves next to main rivers." (Conradie et al. 2021), more or less nocturnal, normally hunts at night (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), any time of day or night (Pietersen et al. 2021), cathemeral (van Huyssteen 2023), mostly nocturnal but basks (Marais 2022, Trape 2023)
Arboreal & Terrestrial (Marais 2004), terrestrial (van Huyssteen 2023), arboreal, terrestrial and aquatic (Marais 2022)
0-1800 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 50eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 30–100eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.33–0.5per year
- First breeds at
- 36–120months
Feldman et al. 2015
30-60, >100 exceptional (Marais 2005, Marais 2022), 30-50 (Wilkey and Terrell 2017), 30-50 and more than 100 (Branch 1998), max=100 (O'Shea 2018), 15-74 and up to 100 in very large females (Pietersen et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Smith
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1840
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
18 ft 4 in × 9 ft 2 in × 27 ft 7 in(560 × 280 × 840 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 18 ft 4 in (5600 mm), at 1 × 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 Lesser African 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.
3084kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 52,581 g, the heaviest recorded for Lesser African 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.
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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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 natalensis. Retrieved 2026-09-09, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/python-natalensis
@misc{python_natalensis_2026,
title = {Python natalensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/python-natalensis}
}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.