Study Reveals Pythons Take Care of Their Offspring, For a Little While
The southern African python wraps around its eggs to keep them warm and does the same for its snakelets during the first weeks of life
By Jason Daley
smithsonian.com
March 15, 2018
Snakes, in general, do not win any parenting awards. The snake species that lay eggs usually plop their clutch in a hole, cover them with dirt, then slither off hoping for the best. Most of the 30 percent or so of snake species that give live birth don’t give much thought to their offspring, either. But as Joshua Rapp Learn at National Geographic reports, a new study has found that at least one species of egg-laying python does do a bit of parenting, showing that a mother’s love has no bounds (even if it does have fangs).
Graham Alexander, a reptile researcher the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, spent seven years observing southern African pythons, which can grow up to 16 feet long, weigh 130 pounds and take down animals as large as antelope. Using radio transmitters and cameras installed in the aardvark burrows the snakes use for nesting, he observed 37 pythons in the Dinokeng Game Reserve, according to a press release about the study, and over the course of the study eight of those snakes laid eggs.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-reveals-pythons-take-care-their-offsping-little-while-180968500/#3fbHASHmORrxmoO4.99
