Life Span of a Python

Video Transcript

"Hi. My name is Tim Cole. I'm with the Austin Reptile Service and I've been keeping reptiles and amphibians for over forty years and we're here to talk about the longevity of pythons. The record for python captivity is forty nine years and that record belongs to a ball python which is what I'm holding right here. It's not that particular snake but it's the same species. Pythons generally are fairly long lived. They can live twenty to twenty five years. In captivity we would expect them to live a little bit longer than they would out in the wild since they're not going to have predators and habitat issues to deal with in the field. In captivity most pythons will feed on dead food. It doesn't have to be live food. That will also help prevent them from becoming injured or hurt in captivity. Your boas and pythons do live quite a while longer than your average king snakes and rat snakes. So if you're going to get one as a pet you want to consider how long they're going to be around. These snakes do average like I said about twenty to twenty five years."