Meet Monty - Murray Darling Python

Monty is a captive bred Victorian Murray Darling Python. Monty is a part of the Bohollow EnviroEd team and plays an important role in our education addressing critical habitat, species decline and local extinction. Murray Darling Pythons are one of the two pythons which inhabit the state of Victoria, the other being the Diamond Python. They are both in the Carpet Python family and are closely related. Monty is only a babe. He came to Bohollow in November last year as a hatchling but is growing quite quickly on his diet of mice. Pythons catch their prey and kill by coiling around it and constricting, then like all snakes, consume their prey whole. When he grows to full size, he may reach a length of up to 1.9 metres. Murray Darling Pythons are predominantly nocturnal snakes and are semi-arboreal, meaning they are quite comfortable climbing trees and hanging out in branches as well as the ground. For a small babe, Monty's role in environmental education is a huge one. This species has become locally extinct in most of their range here in Northern Victoria and you would be very lucky to see one in their wild home now. There are a few factors which have driven these snakes almost to extinction and sadly, not much work on the ground is being done to reverse this. Murray Darling Pythons require natural ground habitat. In Northern Victoria they inhabit two different types of environment, River Red Gum forests and Black Box woodlands which occur along major water courses such as our rivers and creeks but also our seasonal wetland areas and rocky hill areas. They have also been reported in Mallee shrubland. There has been a lot of action taken to improve the situation of our lack of hollow bearing trees. Groups and individuals have been busy building and placing artificial nesting of boxes in trees for a number of years now to address the problem of arboreal habitat loss for species who require hollows for roosting and breeding. Hollow bearing trees, logs on the ground (including hollow logs), large rocky outcrops and thick, natural leaf litter or shrub cover is vital for these snakes to survive. All these things are used for shelter, to allow them to avoid predators, to ambush their prey and to help them thermoregulate (keep them at their optimal running temperatures). Without these types of habitat, their future in the wild is looking very grim indeed. Female Murray Darling Pythons usually breed only once in every 3 or 4 years! They lay up to 20 eggs which they actually incubate by coiling around them, using basking and shivering to keep the eggs at the right temperature. They incubate their eggs in hollow logs or rocky crevices and their method of incubation is considered very advanced parental care for a reptile. It is thought that the prolonged time frame between breeding may have occurred since European Settlement in Australia due to the pressures in their environment not allowing them to have the resources to reproduce more frequently. Being a non-venomous snake and relatively slow moving, they can be easy prey for introduced animals such as foxes and cats, particularly when there is little or no sufficient ground habitat to take cover in. They are also easy for people to kill, mistaking them for venomous snakes. Another major change in the Murray Darling Python's environment has been the local extinction or decline of many of our small native mammal species which were once their diet. In the areas they still do exist, their diet has likely become very dependant on introduced rodent species (rats and mice) and also rabbits as these animals have replaced their natural prey. With the loss of hollows on the ground and no suitable ground cover, these snakes have learnt to utilise rabbit burrows for cover so in places where natural habitat no longer exists and the control of rabbits occurs through ripping of burrows, this can actually be detrimental to the Murray Darling Python. This is a great example of how everything is connected. We have destroyed habitat, much of their natural food prey species do not exist any more and to survive, they have shifted to eating introduced rats, mice and rabbits. These are a pest species which are seen to be something to eradicate..and quite rightly so for the damage they do to our environment, yet ironically, by taking those introduced species away, we are likely taking away the last little bastion of hope for these snakes. Everything is connected in nature like a huge web. If one strand of that web is broken, it compromises the entire web and eventually, strand by strand it breaks and to repair it, the entire structure needs to be strong or it will continue to degrade. What can we do? We need to reverse the habitat loss that has occurred since European Settlement in Victoria. We need to leave fallen timber on the ground, stop burning natural leaf litter on the ground, stop cutting down trees, particularly hollow bearing trees and dead trees, control foxes and cats. Most of us will never get to see this beautiful snake in its wild home. That saddens me greatly. The Murray Darling Python was once described as 'common and widespread' throughout its range in Northern Victoria. Due to our actions of clearing, burning, ripping, plundering our natural surrounds to make way for agriculture, residential areas, camping, firewood, introduced predators and many people also killing these snakes, we now have a very common species in very real danger of becoming extinct. The probability of the Murray Darling Python becoming extinct in Victoria is almost a given, especially if nothing is done to rectify the problems they now face due to our actions. There has been only 160 confirmed recorded sightings of this snake in Victoria. They are now endangered here. One species. Holding on at the brink of being gone forever. One of many in the exact same position. These snakes need our help. For such a small, young snake, our Monty helps us tell a huge story and we hope he inspires people to realise just what we are losing and how we can all make a difference in that story and perhaps we can even change what looks like an inevitable end for these beautiful creatures.