The Debrecen Zoo has some extraordinary news to share with you on World Wildlife Day with the recent arrival of a pair of green tree pythons in our exotic Palm House. Members of species we have never kept before, the newcomers now live in a newly built naturalistic exhibit of their own, thanks to generous support from private donors. Aged seven and two respectively, the female and male are hoped to form a successful breeding pair.
Native to tropical rainforests in New Guinea, Eastern Indonesia, and the northwest of Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, green tree pythons (Morelia viridis) are the most arboreal of all python species. They mostly prey on small mammals, birds, and reptiles, constricting them after an ambush. Solitary except for their breeding season, they have a very distinct way of resting or lying in ambush on tree branches. Females lay their eggs in tree hollows and coil around them for incubation. Green tree pythons have a number of appearance and behavior traits in common with emerald tree boas native to South America, presumably due to major similarities in habitat despite taxonomical differences and great distance in distribution.
Due to habitat loss from deforestation as well as illegal captures for the pet trade, green tree pythons are included in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List. A zoo rarity in Hungary, they are only exhibited in
two other institutions.
Debrecen Zoo
