Flat snake?

I went to the zoo in Portland, Oregon last weekend and noticed that their af rock seemed kinda...Flat. literally. So, what could cause this? Is it just a fat snake, or is it old, or what? Is this normal?http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/28/5y7azy4u.jpg this image is not stretched or distorted, it was really this flat.

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I can't quite find the African rock python you're referring to in the pic, possibly hiding under those boulders there, but the Burmese python you did manage to capture in the pic also clearly represents the description you provided so I guess I can work off of that too. :rolleyes:
Burmese pythons, among other big snakes (like, say, an actual African rock python ;))are rather quite heavy as well as being developed primarily for terrestrial life. Therefor they can seem a bit flat like this, but this can be more extreme in fatter specimens. Zoos in particular are fond of feeding their bigger snakes real well because larger animals are more impressive and eye catching for visitors as opposed to something like a little baby ball python. That's what it is in zoos - either color, size or both!
So, that being a chubby Burmese python, would probably explain why.
You should also contact the zoo about their mislabeled specimen too, if that's the case.

Edit: On top of all that, snakes can also flatten themselves, and may do that either hide better, appear bigger to a predator, or absorb more heat from basking or a warm surface that they may be laying on so keep that in mind too.

It's a burm? I thought it looked a bit odd, but I'm not very good at telling them apart, so I just went with what they labeled it as. Thanks for letting me know! It just seemed very odd to me, I've never seen a boid flatten themselves out like that. I'm just going to assume he's chubby.

Ya unfortunately that is certainly a burm. Google search african rock python and you can see that the patterning is very different between the two. Similarly colored to some extent but the pattern is much more random and broken on the ARP.

But to answer the flatness question, it could have been cold and found a nice warm rock, and they flatten out to increase the surface area of their bodies touching the warm surface to more effectively thermoregulate.

Not apparent in the picture but snakes will also flatten out when they are trying to avoid predation. Ever tried to pick up a blood python when it didn't want to be picked up. They flatten out like a pancake and makes it actually very difficult to get your fingers under them.

There are many reasons why snakes do flatten out, but that one looks to be manipulating it's body for some form of thermoregulation.

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Burms are also sometimes known as 'Indian' Rock pythons. They're still Python molurus. And yes the flattening out is probably a form of thermoregulation

They flatten out to absorb more heat so the sun can hit more of their body

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