The Burmese Python is a snake with brown and yellow patterns on its body. It can grow to be 15-18 feet long. Some have even reached a length of 26 feet. It weighs about 400 pounds! Pythons are cold blooded. They must get heat from outside their body. That's why they stay in the sun as much as possible.

    The Burmese Python’s range is Indochina, Malaysia, India, China, and the Celebes. Its habitat is dense humid forest.

    The Burmese Python’s diet is mammals, reptiles, frogs, birds, and even fish. It looks for prey at water holes. However, in the Brandywine Zoo the pythons eat rats twice a month. They will not waste their energy on striking at something or someone they cannot eat. They kill their prey by constriction. The prey is suffocated and then swallowed whole.

    The python can lay 40 to 100 eggs, and it takes 60 to 90 days before they hatch. When the eggs hatch, the female leaves the babies to fend for themselves. To incubate her eggs the female wraps her body around them.

    The Burmese Python can live to be 25 years old.

    In the Brandywine Zoo there are 1 male and 1 female.

For more information visit:
http://www.rainforestsearch.com/rrrs/snakes.htm
http://www.whozoo.org/students/stamoo/pythonhtml.html
http://www.hensonrobinsonzoo.org/m001.html
http://www.oaklandzoo.org/atoz/azpythn.html
http://www.newenglandreptile.com/CareInfo/CareBurm.html
                                                                                                      by Jordan
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