Scrub python
The Australian scrub python (Simalia kinghorni ), or simply scrub python is a species of snake in the family Pythonidae. The species is indigenous to forests of northern Australia. It is one of the world's longest and largest snakes, and is the longest and largest in Australia. Recently, it has been reclassified to the genus Simalia alongside a few other former Morelia species, but scientific debate over this continues.
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starts withThis snake is commonly considered arboreal or tree-dwelling, making it one of the world's largest and longest arboreal species of snakes. This snake has an ornate back pattern consisting of browns and tans, with many different natural variations. Its belly is usually white, sometimes with some yellows.
S. kinghorni exhibits an unusual sexual dimorphism among pythons. Males are usually a third longer and twice as heavy. Females reach sexual maturity with a snout-vent length of about 2.27 m (7.4 ft) while males reach sexual maturity with snout-vent length of 1.34 m (4.4 ft). On Tully, a river about 140 km south of Cairns, 24 adult females were measured. They had an average length from head to body of 2.68 m (8.8 ft) and a mass of 3.4 kg (7.5 lb). In the same place, 80 adult males had an average snout-vent length of 2.91 m (9.5 ft) and a weight of 5.1 kg (11 lb). Of these, the largest male had a head-to-body length of 3.76 m (12.3 ft) and a weight of 11 kg (24 lb).In the past, data on the lengths of individuals longer than 6 meters were repeatedly mentioned in the literature, and all of them today can no longer be verified and cause serious doubts, in particular, in Fearn & Sambono (2000). The most extreme information comes from Worell, who reported in 1954 second-hand about an animal allegedly 8.5 m (28 ft) long from Greenhill in Cairns, described it as 7.6 m (25 ft) in 1958 and repeatedly mentioned the same thing in 1963 under the first length. He leaves open the question of whether the mass refers to a corpse or to skin stretched more than 3 m (9.8 ft). Dean also describes an extremely large specimen from Barron Falls in 1954. with a total length of 7.2 m (24 ft), which, however, consisted of an artificially stretched frame that decomposed in the tropics for more than two days and, which, considered reliable by the staff of the Guinness Book of World Records. The largest female Australian scrub python, seriously measured to date, was caught in Palm Cove near Cairns in 2000, had a total length of 5.65 m (18.5 ft), 12 cm (4.7 in) on the head and 75 centimeters on the tail, a circumference in the middle of the body of 36 cm (14 in) and a weight of 24 kg (53 lb). The largest male seriously measured to date was discovered in Kuranda in 2002, its length was 5.33 m (17.5 ft), of which the length of the head was 11 cm (4.3 in), and the incomplete tail was 60 cm (24 in), and the weight was 19 kg (42 lb). However, individuals are also known measured even more large sizes, some can weigh more than 27 kg (60 lb) with a length of more than 5 m (16 ft).
S. kinghorni is found in Northern Australia, living within various forests and more densely vegetated parts of the Australian bush.
S. kinghorni is one of the largest land predators in Australia, and depending on the habitat, age and size, the prey range can vary from small mammals, birds and reptiles to wallabies. The basis of the diet consists of birds and mammals. Among them, for example, rainbow bee-eaters (Merops ornatus ), bush rats (Rattus fuscipes ), northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus ), spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus ), northern brown bandicoots (Isoodon macrourus ), long-nosed bandicoots (Perameles nasuta ) and striped possums (Dactylopsila trivirgata ). In addition, on the outskirts of settlements, the species repeatedly feeds on domestic poultry. Relatively often there is also predation of pythons on small wallaby species in particular agile wallabies (Notamacropus agilis ), red-legged pademelons (Thylogale stigmatica ) and Bennett's tree-kangaroos (Dendrolagus bennettianus ). One of the largest animal victims documented to date was a 10 kg (22 lb) adult mobile wallaby, which was swallowed by a female python 4.33 m (14.2 ft) long and weighing 13.5 kg (30 lb).
