# BIG carpet snakes



## cris (Jul 22, 2006)

Someone gave me this article, to save you reading it it says that carpet pythons over 5.5m :shock: had been found near Kaimkillenbun(near bunya mountains in Qld).

While a small article in a paper is not 100% proof i think its highly possible its true. It comes from the Dalby Herald 13 july 2006.


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## gronkus (Jul 22, 2006)

Scrubby?


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## cris (Jul 23, 2006)

> Scrubby?


no, definately not it is a similar latitude to brisbane no scrubbies this far south.


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## hugsta (Jul 23, 2006)

I would imagine it is quite possible, I remember seeing one down a Roy Pails that was suposed to be 14 ft long. It was in its enclosure and certainly looked big enough. I have seen a few 10 footers and his certainly appeared much bigger. So 5.5m is a possability IMO.


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## junglepython2 (Jul 23, 2006)

Crikey that is over 18 foot


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## Australis (Jul 23, 2006)

Maybe its a Monster intergrade like below :shock:


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## AnteUp (Jul 23, 2006)

:shock: is about right!


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## sevrum (Jul 23, 2006)

lets see some more monster carpet pics!


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## Greebo (Jul 23, 2006)

I think that it is feasible a python could live long enough to reach that size beore the introduction of predators by man. ( I'm not saying the C word either)


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## elapid68 (Jul 23, 2006)

Maybe the person who measured it was a fisherman :lol: 
People are nortorious for over estimating snake sizes. The amount of times I've been called out on snake jobs and the person is positive that they have a 6 foot Tiger snake and when I get there it's no more than 2 foot if it's lucky.


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## Greebo (Jul 23, 2006)

If not a fisherman, then he must of been pretty cluey using metric way back when.


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## krusty (Jul 23, 2006)

its like the fish that got away.............load of crap.


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## Mase (Jul 23, 2006)

hahaha ! yeah its always the story of how big the one that got away was ay ?


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## JandC_Reptiles (Jul 23, 2006)

May be possible, 4.3m coastals have been recorded.

I can't see why a 5 or 5.5m would never of existed.
May not be a regular occurance but not imposible imo so long as there was an abundance of food items &amp; perfect weather conditions for them. Would be a very old snake though &amp; chances are predators &amp; natural selection would eliminate most animals from reaching these lengths &amp; ages.


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## hornet (Jul 23, 2006)

would a captive snake reach these sizes?? i have never heard of catpive carpets that size


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## JandC_Reptiles (Jul 23, 2006)

No.
Captive snakes will not recieve the natural UV of wild specimens nor the photo-period or temps of wild specimens, they also won't recieve the varied diet of wild specimens. They also wont be subjected to extremes like wild specimens. Even in the wild there is a strong natural selection against animals reaching these lengths. I highly doubt there has been more than a handful of animals to hit over 4.2 meters.


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## hornet (Jul 23, 2006)

so catpives wont reach large sizes like some of the gaint wild ones?


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## Pythoninfinite (Jul 23, 2006)

That big intergrade was almost 12ft and over 22kg, a real monster. But the Mid North Coast property that it lives on apparently hosts an even bigger one in lantana thickets, and the guy who sees them was spot-on with his estimate of this snake's size, and there's no reason to doubt him. A spectacular animal, and really docile too!

J.


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## cris (Jul 23, 2006)

The more i think about it the more i think it would be true.
Here are a few reasons i thought of -
- a larger snake in such an area has a better ability to survive as it can eat wallabies and roos which are a virtually unlimited food supply even in very tough times.
- sadly i would expect that the snake would have been killed before it was measured  
- i have seen a number of carpets over 3.5m and heard of a 4.5m eating adult turkeys(this one also was killed)  
- the story says the area is well known for having large carpet snakes, most ppl dont like snakes why make it up.
- i also suspect this snake was around some time ago when it had a better habitat and less human caused danger.
- most ppl dont care for the cause of herpetology and wouldnt bother reporting such things officially. I think the "official" max size is only 4m


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## hornet (Jul 23, 2006)

so what would that huge intgrade be fed?


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## Retic (Jul 23, 2006)

I would be very sceptical, 4m I can believe as I saw one at Mt Mee that was well over 10 feet long but 5.5 metres I can't believe. To me it's no different to the 15 metre Reticulated Pythons and Anacondas. Someone sees a huge snake and they guestimate it's size and are usually well off the mark.


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## JandC_Reptiles (Jul 23, 2006)

Hornet,
We are talking about extreme sizes here.
Keep in mind that it is very rare whether in the wild or captivity for a carpet to reach these lengths. Captive animals usually are larger than their wild counterparts (when comparing 2 identical aged snakes) but may not live as long as some wild animals, and as a snake never stops growing these longer living animals are going to be larger than the shorter lived ones. Also these days we have more predators, habitat destruction &amp; natural killings that don't allow many animals to live long enough to reach these sizes (reason it is so rare).


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## hugsta (Jul 23, 2006)

No one can really say they don't exist just because we haven't seen one that size. There is millions of kilometers of untouched bush and habitat and we are still discovering and naming new species everyday. Who can sit there and say it is not possible is dreaming as anything is possible. Who has seen a twelve foot integrade before? But there is the proof in the pic. Same as scrubbies, I have a mate who lives in cairns who regularly sees scrubs over 20 feet. He is near dense rainforest that is impenitrable by people. He knows they are roughly that big as he measrues them out along the fence lines they move along. I for one, have never seen a scrub that big, the biggest is around 16ft. Who is to say they don't get to 28 feet like old reported sightings suggest. JMO.


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## Retic (Jul 23, 2006)

Well I agree that theoretically it must be considered possible as it is theoretically possible that there could be 15 metre Retics :lol: 
My point is that without fail these monster snakes when actually measured seem to have lost a considerable amount of length.


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## Pythoninfinite (Jul 23, 2006)

And any sympathetic property owners aren't going to say much about them either, if they value the animals and are happy to just know they're there. This intergrade was caught on condition it's details could be recorded and then it was to be returned to the property from which it came, but the "let's keep it now" argument came up, and it was only at the forceful insistence of the property owner that it was returned to where it came from. Very disappointing that it even became an issue.

J.


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## Sdaji (Jul 23, 2006)

Don't tell me people are doubting an unsubstantiated report of a ridiculously large snake! :shock: Surely I've misread some of these posts! People don't exaggerate snake lengths, we all know that by now, don't we? Surely the very largest reported snake sizes are genuine! It's even in a newspaper - in [i[print[/i]; it's not possible for it to be untrue.

Elapid68: I think you need glasses, the general public is obviously much better at judging snake lengths than you are. The largest tiger snake I've heard of was 14' - your puny little 6' worms are nothing and I bet yours aren't the ones which turn into brown snakes every summer either! The reports of tiger snake/carpet python hybrids are in print too, and some of the local councils have warned residents about them... the government never gets anything wrong and they never lie to us, so don't go telling me the tiger carpets don't exist...

I went fishing last week...

Next someone is going to tell me that politicians can't be trusted! :shock:

93% of what you read and hear is complete garbage, but only about 4% of people seem to realise it. 96% of statistics are falsified and by now you're probably about 98% ready to stop reading this post.


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## hugsta (Jul 23, 2006)

boa said:


> Well I agree that theoretically it must be considered possible as it is theoretically possible that there could be 15 metre Retics :lol:
> My point is that without fail these monster snakes when actually measured seem to have lost a considerable amount of length.



LOL boa, no arguement there. Most snakes measurements are much more than the actual animal, especially those held in captivity.


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## Retic (Jul 23, 2006)

Politicians can't be trusted ??????????


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## Pythoninfinite (Jul 23, 2006)

I think we'd all like to think there are monsters out there... but... I did actually see that intergrade the night it came into the North Coast Herp Group meeting (when the photo was taken), but it is hard to visualise a carpet bigger than that. It obviously had a ready source of food, rabbits, bandicoots, possums or wallabies, and didn't have to work hard for it's tucker - it was very fat. If I recall it was recorded as the heaviest carpet known to that time (2002) at over 22kg. Looked like a Burm in the bag!

J.


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## Ricko (Jul 23, 2006)

are there anymore shots of that massive intergrade?


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## Sdaji (Jul 23, 2006)

boa said:


> Politicians can't be trusted ??????????



Of course they can, saying otherwise is as ridiculous as saying people exaggerate things. We live in a world of integrity, every human being is 100% honest, reliable and trustworthy. No one exaggerates for the sake of gaining attention or awe, that would be bad, but people are good. Can I borrow some money? I _will_ pay you back...


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## cris (Jul 23, 2006)

Why would they say the area is known for having large carpets, when not far away in the bunya mountains snakes 3.5m and over are common.

No one has said they take it as fact, but to me there seems to be more pointing towards there being larger than average carpets in the area. Even if over 5.5m is an exageration i think it would be fair to assume that there were some very big snakes in the area well over 4m.

Why is a snake that is about 35% longer than what has been recorded in the very limited percentage of snakes offically measured ridiculously large?

Many books i have it says that A. maculosus only get up to 4 foot yet it is fairly common knowledge now that they can get over 1/3 bigger than that in northern populations. Is being a differant genus reason to think an animal 1/3 longer than that recorded is unreasonable?


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## raptor (Jul 23, 2006)

Have owned until recently a 11/12 footer her last she was slough 14ft dry


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## hornet (Jul 23, 2006)

wen i was at the bunya mounts i saw a decent sized carpet, probably almost 3m but that was a few years back b4 i was into herps


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## krusty (Jul 23, 2006)

JandC_Reptiles said:


> May be possible, 4.3m coastals have been recorded.
> 
> I can't see why a 5 or 5.5m would never of existed.
> May not be a regular occurance but not imposible imo so long as there was an abundance of food items &amp; perfect weather conditions for them. Would be a very old snake though &amp; chances are predators &amp; natural selection would eliminate most animals from reaching these lengths &amp; ages.



im not saying that they cant existe but you here a lot of storys about how big things are but when you ask for some proof they all ways say i have lost it or didnt have a camera or some thing like that or when some one else checks the length its all ways a lot smaller than what they said.

so unless there is some real proof most storys are a load of crap....imo


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## Slateman (Jul 23, 2006)

steroids?


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## Sdaji (Jul 23, 2006)

Plenty of 8-10' tiger snakes around where I live. One monster was measured at 12' 4" back in 1986 only 500 metres from where I was living at the time, unfortunately it was road kill :cry:


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## cris (Jul 23, 2006)

> Plenty of 8-10' tiger snakes around where I live. One monster was measured at 12' 4" back in 1986 only 500 metres from where I was living at the time, unfortunately it was road kill


wow cool, are you sure it wasnt a carpet tiger hybrid? or are you actually being serious? :lol:


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## Sdaji (Jul 23, 2006)

No no, I'm serious. They grow quite large around here and being in the Melbourne area, there aren't any Carpets to hybridise with anyway. Near a swamp about 15km for here someone killed a 16' 7" tiger snake after it killed his dogs back in 1994, the dead snake was viewed and measured by many people and the length is not in doubt, but some claim it was actually a brown snake.


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## cris (Jul 23, 2006)

> No no, I'm serious. They grow quite large around here and being in the Melbourne area, there aren't any Carpets to hybridise with anyway. Near a swamp about 15km for here someone killed a 16' 7" tiger snake after it killed his dogs back in 1994, the dead snake was viewed and measured by many people and the length is not in doubt, but some claim it was actually a brown snake.


Thats nothing i saw a 10m blind snake(unsure of species) eating cars then a varanus panoptes that stood 5m high when on all fours came and ate it. This all happend at the park accross the road and down the street although some ppl say that it was actually a v. gouldii.


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## Sdaji (Jul 23, 2006)

What's your point? It almost seems like you're trying to impress me with stories of large animals. 

I saw the largest reptile ever to exist, I heard stories about it at a pub in central Australia, it was said to be a giant Death Adder, which only came out on dark nights. I waited for a warm, moonless night and went out searching... the ground was warm but there was a cool breeze... I searched and searched, wandering about for hours in the sand and spinifex... my torch battery was failing and I decided to start the long walk back to the vehicle, I turned around and saw the mighty death adder which had been stalking me! :shock: It was absolutely huge, but I only had a moment to view it before my torch died completely. In sheer terror, in the dark, I grabbed my rifle and fired several shots at the monstrous beast and heard a thud as a tremendous weight of animal hit the ground. After catching my breath I staggered around in the dark and located the monster... far too heavy to carry, I was just barely able to drag it. Over the next few hours I struggled and persevered, finally managing to get back to the ute. Vandals had smashed the vehicle up, the headlights and windscreen were smashed I managed to get the dead beast into the ute and drove off. At first light I pulled over to take a look at the dead serpent and see with my eyes just how large it was, but when I did, I was hit with the frightening realisation that what I had shot and recovered was merely one of the mighty adder's mites! :shock:


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## hugsta (Jul 23, 2006)

cris said:


> > No no, I'm serious. They grow quite large around here and being in the Melbourne area, there aren't any Carpets to hybridise with anyway. Near a swamp about 15km for here someone killed a 16' 7" tiger snake after it killed his dogs back in 1994, the dead snake was viewed and measured by many people and the length is not in doubt, but some claim it was actually a brown snake.
> 
> 
> Thats nothing i saw a 10m blind snake(unsure of species) eating cars then a varanus panoptes that stood 5m high when on all fours came and ate it. This all happend at the park accross the road and down the street although some ppl say that it was actually a v. gouldii.



No,no, it's true cris, it was seen eating the guys neapolitan mastiffs with ease, the owner tried to kill it with a shotgun but the bullets bounced off so he ran it over with his mack truck 20 times and finally killed it. :roll:


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## Retic (Jul 23, 2006)

I once saw a Little Whipsnake, it really was very little.


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## Snake Catcher Victoria (Jul 23, 2006)

i dont have any giant python annecdotes but i used to a big little whip snake, it was 8.5 feet, 
this actually happened to my uncles friends uncle.he was fishing on the barmah river.
.A passer-by had asked him how the fishing was,,. my uncles friends uncle replies that the fishing is all right, but his "worms" keep biting him. When the passer-by returns later in the day my uncles friend uncle is lying on the bank dead. Upon investigation, it is discovered that his "worms" are actually new-born copperheads. :shock: 
amazing but true..


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## wil (Jul 23, 2006)

thats awesome


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## raptor (Jul 23, 2006)

Sdaji said:


> What's your point? It almost seems like you're trying to impress me with stories of large animals.
> 
> I saw the largest reptile ever to exist, I heard stories about it at a pub in central Australia, it was said to be a giant Death Adder, which only came out on dark nights. I waited for a warm, moonless night and went out searching... the ground was warm but there was a cool breeze... I searched and searched, wandering about for hours in the sand and spinifex... my torch battery was failing and I decided to start the long walk back to the vehicle, I turned around and saw the mighty death adder which had been stalking me! :shock: It was absolutely huge, but I only had a moment to view it before my torch died completely. In sheer terror, in the dark, I grabbed my rifle and fired several shots at the monstrous beast and heard a thud as a tremendous weight of animal hit the ground. After catching my breath I staggered around in the dark and located the monster... far too heavy to carry, I was just barely able to drag it. Over the next few hours I struggled and persevered, finally managing to get back to the ute. Vandals had smashed the vehicle up, the headlights and windscreen were smashed I managed to get the dead beast into the ute and drove off. At first light I pulled over to take a look at the dead serpent and see with my eyes just how large it was, but when I did, I was hit with the frightening realisation that what I had shot and recovered was merely one of the mighty adder's mites! :shock:



You have way too much time on your hands John :lol:


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## waruikazi (Jul 23, 2006)

Sdaji can you come and teach my students how to write stories as good as yours


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## Sdaji (Jul 25, 2006)

raptor: All the easier to pester you with, my dear.

waruikazi: Sure, tell them to start preparing by growing their hair long, appreciating turnips and eating insects. Actually, I can't really take credit for that story, it's a modified version of a story I was told in a NSW pub by a kangaroo shooter. His story didn't mention snakes, ticks, mites, sand, spinifex, dying torch or vandals but it _was_ pretty similar :lol: His version had a rifle, a walk in the dark and I think there was a ute in it and he might have mentioned a cool breeze too :lol:


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## Mase (Jul 25, 2006)

great discussion guys !


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## Thor1 (Jul 25, 2006)

i agree keep the impressive stories coming.
maybe i should add one


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