Australian scrub python
 | A request that this article title be changed to Simalia kinghorni is under discussion. Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed. |
| Simalia kinghorni | |
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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Suborder: | Serpentes |
| Family: | Pythonidae |
| Genus: | Simalia |
| Species: | S. kinghorni
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| Binomial name | |
| Simalia kinghorni (Stull, 1933)
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| Synonyms[1] | |
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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.
Taxonomy
American herpetologist Olive Griffith Stull described the taxon in 1933 from a specimen at the Museum of Comparative Zoology that had been collected at Lake Barrine in north Queensland, classifying it as a as a subspecies of the amethystine python based on its larger number of scales.[2] The specific name, kinghorni, is in honour of Australian herpetologist and ornithologist James Roy Kinghorn.[3] It was first raised to species status by Wells and Wellington in 1984, and given the name Australiasis kinghorni. American biologist Michael Harvey and colleagues investigated the amethystine python complex and confirmed its classification as a separate species based on cladistic analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences and morphology.[4] In 2014 cladistic analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial genes of pythons and boas, R. Graham Reynolds and colleagues concluded that the support for its distinctness was weak.[5]
Description
This 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.
Size
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).[6] 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).[7] 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,[8] 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.[9] 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).[10][11] 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).[11][12] 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).[13][14][15]
Distribution and habitat
S. kinghorni is found in Northern Australia, living within various forests and more densely vegetated parts of the Australian bush.
Diet
All snakes are carnivores. S. kinghorni predates on many different birds, mammals, and even other reptiles.
In captivity
The Australian scrub python is somewhat rare in the pet trade outside of Australia. However, with captive breeding projects and hobbyists interested in the species, it is slowly becoming more available, with its New Guinea counterparts being much more available (especially in the United States).
References
- ^ Species Simalia kinghorni at The Reptile Database
- ^ Stull, Olive Griffith (1933). "Two new subspecies of the family Boidae" (PDF). Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology University of Michigan (267): 1–4.
- ^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (Morelia kinghorni, p. 141).
- ^ Harvey, Michael B.; Barker, David G.; Ammerman, Loren K.; Chippindale, Paul T. (2000). "Systematics of Pythons of the Morelia amethistina Complex (Serpentes: Boidae) with the Description of three new Species". Herpetological Monographs. 14: 139–185. doi:10.2307/1467047.
- ^ Reynolds, R. Graham; Niemiller, Matthew L.; Revell, Liam J. (2014). "Toward a tree-of-life for the boas and pythons: multilocus species-level phylogeny with unprecedented taxon sampling". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 71: 201–213. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.11.011.
- ^ A. Freeman, C. Bruce: The Things You Find on the Road: Roadkill and Incidental Data as an Indicator of Habitat Use in Two Species of Tropical Pythons. In: R. W. Henderson, R. Powell (Hrsg.): Biology of the Boas and Pythons. Eagle Mountain Publishing Company, Eagle Mountain 2007, ISBN 978-0-9720154-3-1, pp. 153–165.
- ^ Fearn S; Schwarzkopf L; Shine R. "Giant snakes in tropical forests: a field study of Australian scrub pythons" (PDF). CSIRO Publishing / Wildlife Research. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 2013-01-10.
- ^ Loren K. Ammerman, Michael B. Harvey; Paul T. Chppindale, David G. Barker (2000). Herpetological Monographs. pp. 139–185 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256197534_Systematics_of_Pythons_of_the_Morelia_amethistina_Complex_Serpentes_Boidae_with_the_Description_of_Three_New_Species.
{{cite book}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Wood, Gerald (1983). The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats. ISBN 978-0-85112-235-9.
- ^ S. L. Fearn, J. Sambono: A reliable size record for the Scrub Python Morelia amethistina (Serpentes: Pythonidae) in north east Queensland. Herpetofauna 30, 2000, pp. 2–6.
- ^ a b Scanlon, John D. (2014). "3". Giant terrestrial reptilian carnivores of Cenozoic Australia. CSIRO Publishing.
- ^ S. L. Fearn: Notes on a maximal sized Scrub Python Morelia amethistina (Serpentes: Pythonidae) from Kuranda, North East Queensland. Herpetofauna 32, 2002, pp. 2–3.
- ^ "Two monster scrub pythons caught in Speewah near Cairns in two days". Cairnssnakecatcher.com.au. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- ^ "5.5m Scrub Python in Speewah". Cairnssnakecatcher.com.au. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- ^ "Big Scrub Python – Machans Beach". Cairnssnakecatcher.com.au. Retrieved 16 June 2022.