|
Stimson's Python
|
- Order: Squamata (scaled reptiles)
- Suborder: Serpentes (=Ophidia) (snakes)
- Family: Boidae (boas and pythons)
- Genus: Liasis (Australian pythons)
|
|
Scientific Name: Liasis stimsoni
Smith, 1985 |
Habitat: Arid
environments. |
|
Length: About 3 feet total. |
Also called Antaresia
saxacola by some. |
Food: Small
vertebrates. |
|
I found this specimen along the Carpentaria
Highway, stretched out, absorbing the heat from the road.
The python was very pale, with a barely discernible pattern of
vertical bars on its sides. I'm not 100% sure it's a
Stimson's Python--it could very well be a Children's Python (Liasis
childreni)--the stretch of road I was traveling is potentially
inhabited by both. |
|
I set my video camera down on
the road with the car behind it, casting the glow of the
headlights onto the python. I then lay down behind the snake
to get a decent size comparison. After talking about the
snake for about 15 seconds, something startled it, and it lurched
the front half of its body into the air and away from me,
slithering off the side of the road. |
|
In the second picture, you can
see the earplugs I wore while driving--given the road conditions
and the noise generated by the car, I would've gone deaf after a
couple of days' driving during my trip! |
|
|
|
|
|