Reticulated python

This is a thick, heavy snake. Its back has a net-like pattern of black zigzag lines around gold, brown and grey patches, often with small white marks along the sides. "Reticulatus" means net-like.

The head is long and pale gold to brown, with a thin dark line down the middle and a black line running back from each eye. The eyes are orange with vertical pupils. Rows of heat-sensing pits along the lips let it find warm-blooded prey in the dark.

Most pythons seen in Singapore today are 2 to 4 m long. Recent data suggests few grow much beyond that here now. The largest ever recorded in Singapore was a 6.7 m museum specimen, noted in 1908. Elsewhere, the longest scientifically measured python was about 7 m, and older reports claim close to 10 m. No other snake grows longer.

It is native and found island-wide, from nature reserves and mangroves to the middle of housing estates. It travels along canals, monsoon drains and storm pipes, and often rests in culverts. It swims very well and will slip into water when disturbed.

Pythons in Singapore have also turned up in toilets, on major roads and even inside cars. After a big meal, a python can go weeks or months without eating, resting somewhere hidden while it digests.

It mainly eats mammals. In Singapore's towns, rats are a major food, which is why pythons turn up wherever rats are common. Pythons here have also been recorded eating cats and at least one dog, and in 2025 one was seen eating a colugo in forest at Mandai. It also takes birds. Elsewhere, very large pythons take deer and wild pigs. It waits in ambush, strikes, then coils around the prey and squeezes until it dies.

Females lay about 15 to 80 eggs in a clutch. The mother coils around her eggs to guard them, which is unusual among snakes. The eggs take about 80 to 90 days to hatch. Hatchlings are around 60 to 75 cm long and fend for themselves straight away. King cobras have been recorded eating pythons in Singapore.

It is not venomous. It does have many sharp, backward-curving teeth, and a bite from a large python can cause deep cuts. Left alone, pythons pose little threat to people, and serious attacks on people are very rare. It sits at GIVE SPACE on the danger scale.