SCRUB OR AMETHYSTINE PYTHON Australiasis amethistina (Schneider, 1801)
Australia's largest python, this snake occurs from Mt. Speck, near Townsville, North Queensland to the tip of Cape York Peninsula. Specimens over 5 metres are known, although a four-metre specimen is regarded as being large. Worrell (1970), records one specimen of 8.5 metres as being recorded from Greenhill near Cairns. This record is in doubt.
The scalation is smooth with 35-50 mid body rows, 270-340 ventrals, single anal, and 80-120 mainly divided subcaudals.
The Scrub Python is most common in rainforests and adjacent coastal habitats. This snake is commonly of uneven temperament and does not make a good pet. It is mainly diurnal in winter, and nocturnal in summer, and feeds on a variety of large vertebrates, including fowls and wallabies. A 3 metre captive adult averaged 9 plucked supermarket sold, size 14 chickens per year over several years, indicating the relatively slow metabolic rate of this and other very large reptiles.
About twelve to twenty eggs are laid prior to the wet season which hatch about 70-90 days later. The hatchlings measure about sixty cm.
Python Taxonomy (as of 2000).
The above was from the book Australian Reptiles and Frogs by Raymond Hoser and now available on a fantastic CD-Rom along with a vast amount of other information, papers and the like on reptiles, frogs and other wildlife.