Colossus (reticulated python)
Colossus is the name of a male reticulated python ( Python reticulatus ) that was kept at the Pittsburgh Zoo from August 1949 to April 1963 .
According to a publication by Barton & Allen (1961) on the feeding and growth behavior of giant snakes in the Pittsburgh Zoo, Colossus was acquired by an animal dealer in Singapore as a total of 6.71 m (22 ft) long in the wild. On June 4, 1951, this python is said to have been 7.1 m (23 ft 3 in) long, on February 24, 1954, 8.3 m (27 ft 2 in) and on November 15, 1956 a length of 8, 7 m (28 ft 6 in). Due to his unpredictable temperament, Colossus was never handled directly. The length specifications had to be determined piece by piece with a measuring tape held through a small gap between the separation cage and the show terrarium while Colossus crawled past it. In his first 11 years at the Pittsburgh Zoo he consumed 68 piglets, some weighing more than 14 kg; a total of 1082 kg pig. With this amount of food he reached a weight of 133.7 kg by 1954; In 1957 he is said to have weighed even 145.1 kg. Apparently, Colossus was not re-measured until his death. There was general certainty, however, that he had now grown to at least 9.14 m (30 ft).
After his death, Colossus achieved the fame of having been the longest snake ever held in captivity, through the Guinness Book of Records . The serious-looking measurements by Barton & Allen (1961) were also widely accepted in scientific circles. Only research by Barker et al. (2012) found that Colossus was donated to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh after his death. Here it was measured exactly one day after his death by the curator at the time. Colossus here was only 6.35 m (20 ft 10 in) in length, with 17.2 cm on the head and 69.9 cm on the tail. Barker et al. assume that the previously massively overestimated total length and the measuring difficulties are due to the optical illusion caused by the significant weight gain of this python during its almost 14 years in the Pittsburgh Zoo.
Despite its real total length of only 6.35 m, Colossus remains an exceptionally large reticulated python, especially for a male. However, it is neither the longest nor the heaviest snake ever held in captivity.
swell
- DG Barker, SL Barten, JP Ehrsam, L. Daddono: The Corrected Lengths of Two Well-known Giant Pythons and the Establishment of a New Maximum Length Record for Burmese Pythons, Python bivittatus . Bulletin of the Chicago Herpetological Society 47 (1), 2012, pp. 1-6, pdf .
Individual evidence
- ^ AJ Barton, WB Allen: Observations on the feeding, shedding and growth rates of captive snakes (Boidae) . Zoologica 46 (7), 1961, pp. 83-87.