Green Tree Pythons

Australasian Green tree pythons, popular in the pet trade, are well known for the brightly colored yellow or red juveniles that eventually transform into the bright green adults. A new report suggests that a habitat shift accompanies the ontogenetic change:

"The mystery surrounding a snake that undergoes a spectacular colour change has been solved by ANU ecologists who have found that the skin of the green python – which begins life either bright yellow or red – transforms to blend into a new habitat as the snake gets older.
"Dr David Wilson and Dr Robert Heinsohn from the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at ANU, with Professor John Endler of Exeter University, solved the mystery after a three year study radio-tracking the green python at Cape York Peninsula." ...
"For the study, published this week in the scientific journal Biology Letters, the researchers radio-tracked a large number of juvenile and adult pythons and analysed their colours using advanced spectrophotometry.
"To their surprise, they found that the brightly coloured youngsters live in a completely different habitat to the older snakes. The juveniles remained outside the rainforest where they hunted small prey such as skinks and cockroaches, whereas the adults moved into the rainforest canopy to hunt rodents and birds.
"The juvenile yellow and red colour allows them to blend in remarkably well with the multi-coloured leaves and grass at the forest edge. The adult green allows them to hide from their predators as they hunt for birds and rodents in the canopy." ...
"'It takes a year before the young ones are large enough to catch bigger prey like birds. They then shed their skins, change to green, and move inside the rainforest to try their luck off the ground.'"

[Full news posted to StrangeArk archive.]