Pythons are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs. This sets them apart from snakes which are ovoviviparous and give birth to live young, such as boa constrictors or sea snakes. After a female python lays her eggs she will tightly wrap herself around them until they hatch.
Whether you are a snake enthusiast that is interested in breeding pythons or you just want to learn more about them, you may want to know how many eggs they lay and how many survive out of a clutch.
The answer isn’t so simple, there are many different species and subspecies of pythons. The female must keep her eggs at a constant temperature for healthy embryo development. Females will not eat during the incubation period and will only leave their clutch to bask and raise their body temperature.
The size of the clutch is highly dependent on the species of snake. Larger snakes also tend to be more prolific egg layers. What we’ve done is broken down the python family by genus and compiled a list of each species and their clutch sizes.
Important
Breeding snakes is a task best left to professional breeders. At Pet Keen, we do not recommend breeding your snakes, as the process isn’t risk free, is time consuming, and places tremendous stress on female snakes. The content in this article is for informative purposes only.
Number of Eggs by 9 Different Genera
1. Antaresia
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Children’s Python | 7 – 25 |
| Spotted Python | 10 – 15 |
| Pygmy Python | 5 – 8 |
2. Apodora
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Papauan Olive Python | 8 – 30 |
3. Aspidites
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Black-headed Python | 6 – 20 |
| Woma Python | 5 – 10 |
4. Bothrochilus
| Bismarck Ringed Python | 5 – 12 |
5. Liasis
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Water Python | 10 – 20 |
| Macklot’s Python | 10 – 18 |
| Olive Python | 12 – 40 |
6. Malayopython
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Reticulated Python | 20 – 80 |
| Timor Python | 5 – 10 |
7. Morelia
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Boelen’s Python | 10 – 20 |
| Bredl’s Python | 20 – 30 |
| Rough-scaled Python | 8 – 10 |
| Carpet Python | 10 – 50 |
| Green Tree Python | 10 – 30 |
8. Python
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Angolan Python | 7 – 10 |
| Burmese Python | 50 – 100 |
| Bornean Short-tailed Python | 10 – 16 |
| Blood Python | 12 – 30 |
| Sumatran Short-tailed python | 7 – 12 |
| Myanmar Short-tailed Python | 7 – 12 |
| Indian Python | 20 – 100 |
| Ball Python | 3 – 11 |
| African Rock Python | 20 – 100 |
9. Simalia
| Species | Number of Eggs |
| Amethystine Python | 10 – 20 |
| Australian Scrub Python | 10 – 20 |
| Moluccan Python | 15 – 20 |
| Tanimbar Python | 7 – 15 |
| Oenpelli Python | 10 – 20 |
| Halmahera Python | 10 – 20 |
How Many Will Survive?
As you can see, the number of eggs in a clutch is dependent on the species of python. You will notice a pattern: that snakes within the same genus tend to lay similar clutch sizes.
Generally speaking, the larger the snake, the larger the clutch. The Burmese and Reticulated Pythons are two of the largest species of snake in the world and they can lay up to 100 eggs per clutch. Most other pythons typically don’t lay more than 20 eggs per clutch.
Many factors can determine how many eggs in a clutch will survive. There’s no way to give a specific number of likely surviving eggs. If the mother snake is in the wild, it is dependent on factors such as predators, whether the mother can fully incubate all eggs, and whether or not each ovum was healthy, to begin with.
As for breeding under human care, most snake handlers will remove the clutch of eggs after the female lays them. They will then place them in a manmade incubator to evenly distribute the needed heat for the eggs to properly develop.
Conclusion
It’s hard to say exactly how many eggs a python will lay. It depends on the exact species of python, but even then, we can only guess a specific range of the number of eggs a particular species will lay. The number of eggs that survive will also vary, depending on several factors such as whether the python is in the wild or under human care.
Featured Image Credit: BikerPhoto, Shutterstock
