PYTHON

This article appears in Volume V22, Page 704 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PYR-RAY

PYTHON , a genus of very large

snakes

SNAKES

of the family Boidae
(see

SNAKES

SNAKES

) inhabiting the tropical parts of Africa, Asia and
Australia. They differ from,
the true boas (q.v.), with
which they are often con-
founded by carrying a few
teeth in the premaxilla, by
the

double

row of subcaudal
shields and by the posses-
a pair of supraorbital
bones. Most of them have pits in some of the upper and lower labial shields.
Python reticulatus is the commonest species in Indo-China and the Malay Islands; four upper labial shields on either side are pitted. It is, next to the Anaconda, one of the largest of all snakes, some specimens being known which measured about 30 ft. in length. P. molurus, scarcely smaller, is the python or rock-snake of India and Ceylon. The African species are much smaller, up to 15 ft. in length, e.g. P. sebae of tropical and southern Africa and the beautiful P. regius of West Africa. P. spilotes is the "

carpet

CARPET

-snake " of Australia and New

Guinea

GUINEA

. A small relative of pythons is Loxocemus bicolor of

South

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

Mexico

MEXICO
MEXICO (Span. Mejico, or Mexico,)
DISTRICT
- DISTRICT
_OF.html">MEXICO, FEDERAL
DISTRICT
- DISTRICT
OF
MEXICO, GULF OF

, the only New World example.
The giant pythons could no doubt overpower and kill by constriction almost any large mammal, since such snakes weighmany hundredweights and possess terrific strength, but the width of their mouthalthough marvellously distensiblehas, of course, a limit, and this is probably

drawn

DRAWN

at the size of a goat. Before a python swallows such large prey, its bones are crushed and the

body

BODY

is mangled
into the shape of a sausage. The snake begins with the head, and a

great

GREAT

quantity of saliva is discharged over the

body

BODY

of the victim as it is hooked into the throat
by the alternately right and FIG. 2.Head of Python reticulatus. left forward motions of the distended well-toothed jaws. If for any reason a snake should disgorge its prey, this will be found smothered with slime. Hence the fable that they cover it with saliva before deglutition.
Most pythons are rather ill-tempered, differing in this respect from the boas. They are chiefly arboreal, and prefer localities
aN~
in the vicinity of water to which mammals and birds, their usual prey, resort. They move, climb and swim with equal facility. The female collects her eggs, sometimes as many as one hundred, into a heap, round which she coils herself, covering them so that her head rests in the centre on the top. In this position the snake remains without food throughout the whole period of incubation, or rather keeping guard, for about two months. (H. F. G.)

End of Article: PYTHON

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