Adult Male Burm Size?

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Originally Posted by Krj2501

15 feet is the upper end of average for a male mainland Burm - NOT the absolute maximum size. Please do more research - and do not just trust one source for your information.

Still a 18 foot male Burm - is basically like a 7+ foot man - in that both are considered exceptionally large individuals for their species. But still very much possible.

It is often reported that as a species Burmese pythons don't exceed 19 to 20 feet in length. Those are based on the known "confirmed" reports of the largest known specimens kept in captivity (usually Zoos). However there are some "unconfirmed" reports of Burms which are about 23+ feet in length, and weighing more than 400 lbs.

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An 18ft male burm is not like a 7ft man, it's like a 9ft cornsnake. Still, Ill wait for pictures as I don't know of one that exists and in my opinion it doesn't (it's like you said; an unconfirmed report). Just calling it like it is. Ive been doing this for a while my friend, I don't have one source. Been working with a well known breeder that handles 500+ retics and burms as of late changing cages for him in exchange for tattoos and he seems to agree when I brought this up last night as well.

I am just over a year into my first burm, a male green albino. At 18 months old he is just over 7 feet and rather svelt. He's got some size to him, but certainly hasn't matured into that big thick burm body yet. I don't know his weight but def in the neighborhood of 10 to 15lb. And i must say, this is my first big snake (BP's as a kid, boas more recently) and at his current size i really just want him to be even bigger :D . Although I'm glad i got a male b/c i see the pics of the giant females and it looks more like moving furniture than handling a pet. But to put things into perspective, thats a 7 foot snake in the pictures, you can see with some effort i've got him in one hand. He started a bit small b/c the breeder had him on mice and it took me 8 weeks of frustration to switch him to rats, since then he was on one rat a week, he progressed from weanlings to sm to med to lg from February to October, then once on xl i stretched out to 10 days.
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An 18ft male burm is not like a 7ft man, it's like a 9ft cornsnake. Still, Ill wait for pictures as I don't know of one that exists and in my opinion it doesn't (it's like you said; an unconfirmed report). Just calling it like it is. Ive been doing this for a while my friend, I don't have one source. Been working with a well known breeder that handles 500+ retics and burms as of late changing cages for him in exchange for tattoos and he seems to agree when I brought this up last night as well.

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In all fairness to my previous comment. I was basing my comments - on my childhood/teen memories of the first Burmese python(George) I ever saw in person. George was a wild caught (caught in Vietnam in 1963), by a US Army Green Beret officer, and bought back to Fort Bragg, NC. The officer give George to the Museum of Nature Sciences in Raleigh, NC. Which is where I saw him multiple times, in my childhood and teenage years. I remembered George being stated at ~ 18 feet, by the museum. However at the time of his death in April of 1989, George was officially revealed to be just over 16 feet long, and to be a female.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/lo...136929293.html

And I hadn't re-read some of the older posts in this thread. So that is my fault.

Still my basic point was - that although In Your Personal Experiences, you have never encountered a male burm over 15 feet, doesn't mean that they can't get bigger than that. For example - let say you saw a 15 foot long male that was 15 years old. It would be very possible for that burm to get to be 16-17 feet long - if it lived to be 25-30 years old.

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Originally Posted by Krj2501

Still my basic point was - that although In Your Personal Experiences, you have never encountered a male burm over 15 feet, doesn't mean that they can't get bigger than that. For example - let say you saw a 15 foot long male that was 15 years old. It would be very possible for that burm to get to be 16-17 feet long - if it lived to be 25-30 years old.

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That's what I am saying however. Males seem to reach a certain length and then completely stop gaining any more length from that point on. They will continue to gain girth their entire lives. This is why I stated that I've never heard of a male growing past the 15 foot range, I simply do not think it is possible. The original post stated that there was a 20 foot male at 250lbs. It's POSSIBLE but rare for a female at that size, but it's a tall tale for a male. It just doesn't happen, period. At least in the types of mainland Burms that are in the pet trade. The thing to remember is that people love to embellish the length and size of large constrictors for attention/shock value. Very common occurrence. It's why a lot of people also will get to the point where they're feeding pigs/goats to otherwise healthy Burms in order to push size.....in the end an exceptionally large snake gets attention.

Put it this way, there are a lot of people claiming they've held a 40ft Anaconda after holding a boa constrictor at the pet store. There are a lot of keepers claiming that they once had a 300lb Retic/Burm at 25 feet long in their collection....but when the animal final dies. The true length and weight are ALWAYS overstated, OR (like in your case) an exceptionally large animal turns out to be a female. Keep in mind that a 250lb male would not have been bred very much, if ever (as that's an overweight male) - they lose a substantial amount of body fat during the breeding process.

I will agree that often times eyeball estimations in the lengths of snakes can be off by as much 25-33%. Which can be quite huge in large burm/retic/& anacondas. And in some cases may still be happening.

If we consider Baby the Burmese Python, and Colossus the Reticulated Python as being the largest scientifically recorded specimens. That still doesn't mean that there couldn't be captive specimens which are even larger. But it does mean that specimens which are larger would be exceptionally rare (possible 1 in 1,000). But such specimens would need to be very well feed(large meals, on a very regular basis), well beyond what is normal for the species in their natural habitat.

Baby was estimated to be about 25-27 feet long, while alive. At her death - she was officially measured at 18 feet 10 inches (5.74 meters) and said to have weighed 403 lbs (182.8 kg).

Colossus was estimated to be about 27-30 feet long in that last decade of her life. But after her death, her skeleton was measured at 20 feet 10 inches(6.35 meters) in length. With her fresh hide, measured at 23 feet 11 inches(7.29 meters). And she weighed about 320 lbs (145.1 kg).