Ziggy
Royal / Ball Python (Python regius)
About me
| Basic Info | Home: | Africa rules! Check me out sliding from east to west over this beautiful continent, from Senegal to Sudan and a good few countries in between. |
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| Size: | I'm about average length for my kind, around the 4 feet mark. My lovely wife, Stardust, she's slightly longer than me which is kinda standard fare in python land. | |
| Favourite foods: | Now, let's see...a cheeky wee small mammal is simply delicious, like a rat or mouse. My two sons love a bird now and again, as a little treat. | |
| Environment: | I'm a grass man, nice and clear areas with a few wee trees here and there suits me fine. | |
| Sounds like: | David Bowie.....nah, not really. More of a SSSSSSSSS!!!! |
| Further Info |
In Nigeria the lgbo people revere these snakes, they are considered symbolic of the earth and are treated with great care and respect. If a royal python is killed in a village by mistake people often make a coffin for the snake and give it a short funeral. They are called royal pythons because it has often been said that Cleopatra wore these snakes around her wrists as decoration. Alternatively they are often referred to as ball pythons due to their tendency to roll up into a tight ball with their head protected in the middle when they feel threatened. Like all pythons they are completely non-venomous and instead kill their small mammalian prey through constriction. They locate their prey mainly through two heightened senses, one being smell where they use their forked tongue like a nose and the other is being able to pick up levels of heat around them, using a row of pits in their upper lips. There are still good populations of royal pythons in the wild but many of these are being threatened by habitat destruction and collection for the exotic pet trade, the skin trade and even for their meat. |
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| Useful links |