The following story is provided by our Site Partner, Blogger and Proud Business Owner "Snake Catchers Brisbane". They provide stories on their non-stop adventures and inform the public on the wide range of snake species they encounter.
It's that time of the year where call outs for snakes on eggs are becoming more frequent.
This female Carpet Python was holding up work on a building site in St Lucia (Brisbane) earlier this week until one of our snake catchers arrived to safely remove her and her eggs, which are now being incubated in care.
Female Carpet Pythons will incubate their eggs for roughly 2 months. During this time, she won't eat and will only ever move off the eggs to bask in the sun close by and return the heat to the eggs. As you can imagine, due to this dedication, they end up looking quite emaciated towards the end of the incubation period. Once the young begin to hatch and disperse, there is no further parental care.
So where do Carpet Pythons typically lay their eggs?
Many common features of the backyard are attractive sites for egg deposition/incubation.
For example, piles of grass clippings as pictured here, are one of the most common sites we collect eggs from. Avoid letting a pile of grass clippings accumulate into a very attractive mound for snakes to see as a suitable site for their eggs. This is something we see regularly when conducting inspections of properties.
Another common feature of many backyards are rock retaining walls. Now, retaining walls provide suitable refuge for snakes at any time of the year, but they are also attractive sites for egg deposition/ incubation as they provide a suitable microclimate for snakes to maintain ideal body temperatures.
Simple shelter sites provided by various natural and artificial debris should also be considered as potential sites when tidying up the yard.
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Epilogue: Morelia spilota, commonly referred to as the carpet python or diamond python, is a large snake of the family Pythonidae found in Australia, New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago, and the northern Solomon Islands. They primarily eat mammals and birds, although smaller pythons prefer to eat lizards. Often encountered in suburban areas, you couldn't find a better rat catcher. Like most pythons, the carpet python has heat sensitive pits on their upper and lower lips, which help them detect the body heat of their prey.
(Australia Zoo - https://www.australiazoo.com.au/our-animals/reptiles/boas-and-pythons/carpet-pythons)
