Large-Blotched Python Facts

Video Transcript

"So, this is a large blotched python, Antaresia Stimsoni, and it's a species found exclusively in Australia, in the western part of Australia. It is like most pythons, a nocturnal constrictor, and this particular type of snake spends a good deal of time, actually in caves, where it hunts for invertebrates on the ground, or even flying through the air, and when it gets a little larger, is known for hunting bats in the dark, and pythons having the heat sensing organs. They're hard to see on her head, but she does have heat sensing pits, right behind her eye, and so in the dark, even though she can smell the bats,she can also kind of sense when they fly, by the heat that they're giving off, as warm blooded mammals, and she can strike out, and grab them in midair, and that's one of the things that this particular species does. Like other pythons, they are egg layers, and they lay ten to twenty eggs, or so, which hatch usually somewhere two to three months after they're laid. The females of many python species, are actually slightly larger, than the males, but with this species, the females tend to be quite a bit smaller than the males. They're not a large species. They get to be about three and a half to four and a half feet long. She's got a little growing to do still, and like the other pythons, they do have the anal spurs. Hers are really tiny, and the female spurs are always smaller than the males."