Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure

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Fast Facts:

Also known as the Royal Python, these snakes have a pattern of blotches with shades of yellow or gold on brown or bluish brown color. There is some iridescence.
Excellent swimmers, they have the ability to pump air into their bodies for flotation. When they want to dive, they simply release air.
Some African cultures hold the Ball Pythons to be sacred.

Ball Python

Scientific Name:	Python regius
Classification:	Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Reptilia Order: Squamata Family: Boidae
Status:	Threatened
Range:	Equatorial West Africa
Habitat:	Forest and savannah regions
Diet:	Rodents
Size:	3 -5 feet.
Lifespan:	20 - 30 yrs.
Location:
Print Fact Sheet	Ball Python

Special Features

When threatened, it curls itself into a ball with its head inside the coils. The ball is so tight it can be rolled along the ground.
Spend some time in the trees and bushes.
Constrictors, they seek out food with the aid of a heat sensing pits located in the scales boarding their mouths.
They are primitive snakes that still possess a pelvic girdle and "vestigial" limbs (remnants of hind legs) . These snakes have upwards of 100 "recurved" teeth (curved inward), which are used to hold prey until the snake can kill them by constriction.
They swallow their food whole.

Social Structure & Behavior

Nocturnal.

Reproduction:
They are oviparous and the female will take over a mammal burrow or other retreat and coil around the eggs to incubate and protect them. Eggs are large and there are 6-7 in a batch. Incubation is 3 months. Sexual maturity is between 18 months and 4 years. At birth the pythons are able to hunt and constrict. They mate every 2-3 years.