All the huge Old World pythons are in the genus Python and, depending on your taxonomy (more on this below), there are 7-10 species. In Africa, the most widespread is the Southern African Rock Python P. natalensis (above, left and right; just a reversed image close-up of the lefthand shot). It has been recently split from Central African Rock Python P. sebae, and there still are questions whether or not hybrids exist in a narrow overlap zone (Spawls et al. 2002). They are fairly easy to identify, though: P. natalensis has a long outlined dark blotch behind the eye but only a dark line in front of the eye (rather than a large dark blotch here as in P. sebae).

Besides the two species of rock python in Africa, there is the beautifully patterned Royal (or Ball) Python P. regius of the Sahel from Senegal to Uganda (a small 4—5 foot species) and the much smaller Angolan Dwarf Python P. anchietae of sw. Africa. There are also 4 species of sand boa.
 

Another rock python occurs widely in Asia: the Indian Rock Python Python molurus (left and below). It ranges from Pakistan to Indonesia. During a visit to Bharatpur (Keoladeo Ghana Nat'l Park), India, we were taken to a burrow below a large spreading tree (left) that harbored up to five Indian Pythons. Two were basking outside the hole when we arrived. Note how well even the huge python blends into the grass and ground (left). A close-up of the head of one is below. These also seemed to be about ten-footers and rather slim for big pythons. Everyone visiting Bharatpur should look for these pythons. Kazmierczak & Singh (1998) write: "Bharatpur is famous for Indian Rock Pythons: a good place is the area around Python Point. They live underground in hollows often shared with Porcupines and can be found sunning themselves at midday or curled up beneath a bush... If you have trouble finding one, consider investing in the services of a naturalist-guide for a few hours."

It is often said that the longest snake in the world is Reticulated Python P. reticulatus of southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. This is a beautifully patterned snake, and has long been a favorite of mine to see in zoos and herpetariums. It is repeatedly asserted that one caught on Celebes [Sulewesi] was measured at a length of 33 ft. (9.9 meters; Pope 1961). An on-line resource summarized a bit about the largest ones ever in captivity:

Whether the story of the 33-foot Reticulated Python is true is less than certain. Murphy & Henderson (1979) says "Hard evidence and critical details, however, appear to be lacking. Yet it appears that the Guiness Book of World Records 1991 has accepted this record as the world's largest snake. The Book of World Record's date of 1912, and the reference to a
mining camp in the Celebes, all match this story, but the length of the snake is given as 32 feet 9.5 inches instead of the 33 feet quoted below (Raven 1946), and is most likely the result of converting 10 m to feet." [Note: probably the "9.9m" in Pope is a conversion of "33 feet" the other way!]  In any event, the story is apparently based on this quote: "... men at the mine told me of a huge python one of their natives had killed a few days before my arrival, and showed me a very poor photograph of it taken after it had been killed and dragged to camp. The civil engineer told me it was just ten meters (33 feet) long. I asked him if he had paced off its length, but he said no, he had measured it with a surveying tape." Thus is seems that real scientific evidence of a snake longer than 30 feet is lacking.

This Reticulated Python is traditionally stated to range from "Burma" (Myanmar) to Indonesia (e.g., Carr 1963). However, I believe that we saw one in the Brahmaputra floodplain in Kaziranga Nat'l Park, India, in March 2001. I described the experience this way in my notes: "A huge 12-15 footer was undulating through the grass at Kaziranga near dusk on one game drive in the central range; it was incredibly thick and totally impressive. It was beautifully patterned with large dark brown diamonds interlaced between broad black diagonal lines." I find an on-line reference to this species farther up the Brahmaputra River in Namdapha Nat'l Park in Arunachal Pradesh in extreme northeastern India. Perhaps it is not so ridiculous that they occur downstream in Kaziranga? The snake we saw seemed much too dark brown and patterned, and much too thick, to be the slimmish India Rock Python seen just the week before in central India (and there is no other reasonable choice).

The family Boidae has three subfamilies: Pythoninae (Old World Pythons in 8 genera), Boinae (Boas in 7 genera, mostly in the New World but including a few in Madagascar, New Guinea and the south Pacific), and subfamily Erycinae (Sand Boas in 4 genera). Pythons lay eggs while boas are live-bearing. All, however, obtain prey by constriction. The huge pythons eat deer, wild pigs, and large rodents; the very small species (like the 2—3 foot Rubber Boa of western U.S.) eat mice, gophers, shrews, birds, lizards and salamanders (Stebbins 2003).

Altogether there are about 70 species in the Boidae (Stebbins 2003). The taxonomy of these snakes is currently undergoing dramatic changes. For example, considering just the subfamily Pythoninae, Spawls et al. (2002) stated that there were 23 species in the world, but a current on-line list has 34 species. Many of these additions were described within the last two years, apparently under an "evolutionary species concept" (ESP) which is closely related to the "phylogenetic species concept" (PSC) that has created such havoc among ornithologists. Both the ESC and the PSC create many new species because it includes anything at the end of a clade of heritable traits, without regard to whether the populations would or do interbreed where they meet in the wild. Many of these ESP (and PSC) "species" are assigned that rank solely on genetic differences in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). As with birds, I am a strong proponent of the "biological species concept" (BSC) because it best expresses what is really happening in nature and how populations treat each other. While it is likely true that pythons have been under-studied and that there are more "real" species than previously thought, it is also likely that splits based entirely on low divergence in mtDNA are artificial. It will take some time and peer review by scientists to sort this all out.
 

There are many pythons in Australasia but how many is currently subject to much debate. When I visited Australia in 1983, the book we used (Gow 1976) listed ten species. Spawls et al. (2002) refers to 15 species in Australia, but a current on-line list has 24 species in a broad Australasia (including New Guinea, Halmahera, and the Bismarks). Australia's largest python is the Amethyst (or Scrub) Python Morelia amethistina (above). It is a python of tropical rain forests, mostly nocturnal in habits and sometime concealing itself in trees. Apparently Harvey et al. (2000) proposed splitting this species into at least three, including M. clastolepis on Ambon and M. kinghorni in NE Queensland (Cape York Peninsula, several Islands of Torres Straits). These splits are apparently based on an "evolutionary species concept." I presume that the one I photo'd (above & left) is still M. amethistina as it was on the Atherton tablelands, but Cape York Peninsula is not far away. My friend John Sullivan has photos of a couple other Australian pythons, and an Amethyst from the Cape York Peninsula, on his web site. In any event, to quote Gow (1976) on this python: "Its food consists of warm-blooded animals up to the size of a small wallaby; its eats birds, and its liking for domestic fowls often brings about its death at the hands of the farmer." The particular Amethyst Python photographed here was found by Hans Beste (left) in his chicken coop at "Ptiloris," a birdwatchers' bed-and-breakfast that Hans & Judy Beste then operated near Mt. Lewis (they have since sold this business, but it was a great stay-over at the time in 1983). Hans put this python in a burlap bag and had us (Chris Spooner, seen in the background of my shot, Steve Wilson & me) release many miles away later that day. Gow (1976) states that this species averages 4.5 metres (14 feet) and has been recorded to 7.5m (24.5 feet). The python in my photos looks perhaps 7 feet long, so it was just a half-grown youngster. Note just how slim this species is compared to the big, lumbering ground pythons in genus Python.

Moving to subfamily Boinae in the New World, the largest Neotropical snake is the Anaconda Eunectes murinus (below; a captive individual at Leticia, Colombia, in July 1975). The Anaconda is considered the "biggest" snake in the world (if not the longest), although it has been said to reach lengths of over 27 feet. There are many exaggerated stories about Anacondas being much longer, but they all seem exaggerated; Murphy & Henderson (1997) report 24 feet for the largest measured Anaconda. The Reticulated Python may be the longest snake (at 33 feet, or so it is said) but a. 20-foot Anaconda will weigh more than a 33-foot python. The Anaconda can weigh 550 pounds or more, but will usually top out at a few hundred pounds. These snakes can measure more than 12 inches in diameter. The female typically outweighs the males (e.g., Pope 1961, Carr 1963). You can get a feeling of just how heavy even a mid-sized one is in my old photo (below).

Some current literature splits the Anaconda into two species: the Green Anaconda E murinus (above) and the Yellow Anaconda E. notaeus (below). The Green Anaconda range is the tropical rainforest of northern South America in Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, N Bolivia, NE Peru, Guyana, and Trinidad. Yellow Anaconda ranges in the southern Amazon Basin in Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, W Brazil (Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná and São Paulo), and NE Argentina. There is even yet another proposed species (E. deschauenseei) but hybrids between E. notaeus and E. murinus have been described and all are closely related. Whether to split or not likely depends on the species concept preferred. In any event, the Yellow Anaconda shown here (above) is quite a small specimen. It was lying in a shallow pool with lily pads next to Santa Teresa Lodge in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso, Brazil, in August 1999. Anacondas are very much water pythons, spending much of their time in lakes, lagoons, and slow-moving rivers. During a visit to Sucasari Camp near where the Napo River enters the Amazon River in NE Peru in June 1987, our boatmen caught this small Green Anaconda (below). In both snakes, note the pattern of large black dots on the yellowish (above) or green (below) dorsal surface. This pattern blends the snake in well with the wet, dense vegetation of its habitat (see above). The sides have similar spots with yellow centers.

There area few Old World representatives of the Boinae, and the one I've seen is the Madagascar Little Boa (or Madagascar Ground Boa) Sanzinia madagascariensis (right). We saw one to three boas each time we visited Perinét reserve in northeast Madagascar. This is lowland rainforest with a chain of lakes and slow-moving streams, and the boas were usually found at pond edge. This species, at least, appears to be very diurnal. The last subfamily in the Boidae are 4 genera of boas in subfamily Erycinae. Two of these are in western North America: Rosy Boa Charina trivirgata and Rubber Boa C. bottae (below in a photo by Parker Backstrom; this snake found in the Sierran foothills of Fresno Co., California). I have yet to see any species in this subfamily; not even the Rubber Boa that occurs in my home county (Monterey Co., Calif.). These boas are very secretive and mostly nocturnal or crepuscular. Another small boa in this subfamily is Calabar Ground Python Calabaria reinhardtii of west and central Africa. Beyond that there are sand boas: 8 species of Eryx in central Asia, and 3 species of Gongylophis in Africa and India. I would say that any python or boa is a really cool treat during a day out in the field. And then for something completely different, put on "Monty Python" that evening...

Literature cited:

Carr, A. 1963. The Reptiles. Life Nature Library, Time Inc., New York.

Gow, G.F. 1976. Snakes of Australia. Angus & Robertson, Sydney.

Harvey et al. 2000. Herpetological Monographs 14:139-185 [sorry; don't have the full reference]

Kazmierczak, K., and R. Singh. 1998. A Birdwatcher's Guide to India. Prion Ltd., Sandy, U.K.

Murphy, J.C., and Henderson, R.W. 1997. Tales of Giant Snakes. Kreiger, Miami FL.

Pope, C.H. 1961. The Giant Snakes. Alfred Knopf, New York.

Spawls, S., K. Howell, R. Drewes, and J. Ashe. 2002. A Field Guide to the Reptiles of East Africa. Natural World, Academic Press, London.

Stebbins, R.C. 2003. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. 3d ed. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

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