Burmese Python
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40 free Burmese Python trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Burmese python is one of the largest snakes on Earth, a patient hunter from the forests and wetlands of Asia that can swallow animals far wider than its own head. It is also one of the most studied reptiles alive, because what happens inside it after it feeds is unlike anything in the mammal world. These fun facts about Burmese pythons cover the whole story: how the snake finds, kills and digests its prey, how mothers care for their eggs, the colour forms prized by keepers, record-breaking giants, and the invasion of the Florida Everglades, where the snake has reshaped the wildlife of an entire wetland. The questions suit reptile fans, students working on an invasive-species project, and anyone who has seen a headline about python hunters and wanted to know more. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up a new fact with each question.
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Q 01Which pop star danced with an albino Burmese python on her shoulders at the 2001 MTV VMAs?
Britney Spears
Britney Spears wore the snake while premiering a new single, and later revealed that it swung its head round to her face and hissed mid-song.
Q 02Which 1992 hurricane wrecked a Florida Burmese python breeding facility, loosing its snakes into the swamps?
Andrew
Andrew is often blamed for the invasion, though researchers think the breeding population more likely took hold elsewhere, from a handful of founder snakes.
Q 03A mother Burmese python wraps herself around her eggs and warms them for weeks by doing what?
Twitching her muscles
Twitching her muscles in a slow shiver raises the temperature around the eggs by several degrees, but once the young cut their way out she gives them no further care.
Q 04What triggers a Burmese python's heart to bulk up, its main chamber growing about 40 percent heavier?
Eating a big meal
Eating a big meal sets off a top-to-tail rebuild: the intestines bulk up, stomach juices surge and oxygen use can climb to 40 times the resting rate.
Q 05A captive Burmese python that weighed 403 pounds, the heaviest snake then on record, went by which name?
Baby
Baby outweighed any wild snake ever measured, yet she stretched less than 19 feet, a length that a wild python caught in Florida has since beaten.
Q 06Which native Everglades reptile both hunts and is hunted by the Burmese python, depending on size?
American alligator
American alligator adults can kill and swallow a python, while large pythons take small gators, and the two also compete for the same prey.
Q 07Which swamp-dwelling giant of South America is generally rated the world's heaviest snake, ahead of the Burmese python?
Green anaconda
Green anaconda females are the bulkiest snakes in the wild, while the reticulated python of Southeast Asia holds the title of longest.
Q 08Hunters are advised not to dine on Everglades Burmese pythons because the flesh carries which toxic metal?
Mercury
Mercury builds up in top predators, and python tissue tested at up to 3.5 parts per million, more than double the level Florida calls unsafe in fish.
Q 09A Burmese python has no venom, so how does it kill an animal once its jaws have a grip?
Squeezing it
Squeezing it stops the blood supply so the victim dies of cardiac arrest, not crushed bones, and the python then swallows the kill whole.
Q 10Burma, the country that gave the Burmese python its name, is now officially known by what name?
Myanmar
Myanmar replaced Burma as the official English name in 1989, though the snake itself ranges far wider, from Nepal to southern China.
Q 11Road surveys in the Everglades found sightings of which mammal down 99.3 percent after Burmese pythons spread?
Raccoons
Raccoons all but vanished from the roadsides, opossum sightings fell almost as far, and foxes were no longer seen at all.
Q 12Until 2009, scientists classed the Burmese python as a subspecies of the giant python named after which country?
India
India lends its name to the Indian python, whose genes still turn up in the Everglades, where DNA tests found that some of the invaders are hybrids of the two.
Q 13About 1,600 hunters joined Florida's first Python Challenge in 2013; how many Burmese pythons did they catch?
68
Just 68 were caught in a month, a sign of how well pythons hide: in one test even seasoned snake experts spotted only about 1 in 100.
Q 21Despite overrunning Florida, the Burmese python holds which status on the IUCN Red List in its Asian range?
Vulnerable
Vulnerable has been its listing since 2012, after wild numbers fell by at least 30 percent in a decade through habitat loss and over-harvesting.
Q 22Scientists can detect hidden Burmese pythons in Florida by testing blood sucked up by which insects?
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes in South Florida now feed on the invaders, so screening their blood can reveal snakes that searchers would walk straight past.
Q 23A 2014 radio-tracking study found that Burmese pythons moved far from their capture sites could do what?
Navigate home
Q 14Pits lining a Burmese python's jaws let it find birds and mammals in total darkness by sensing what?
Body heat
Body heat shows up as infrared radiation, which the pits pick up from warm-blooded animals, a handy trick for a hunter that works after dark.
Q 15The two claw-like spurs beside a Burmese python's vent are the leftover traces of what?
Hind legs
Hind legs shrank away in snake ancestors, leaving a sliver of thigh bone capped by a claw, which pythons still use to nudge a partner during courtship.
Q 16The Burmese python shares its name with Python, a monstrous serpent of Greek myth slain at Delphi by which god?
Apollo
Apollo took over the serpent's oracle after the kill, and the priestess who spoke there became known as the Pythia.
Q 17Which animals beat human search teams at finding Burmese pythons along canals, covering three times the distance?
Dogs
Dogs succeeded in 92 percent of canal searches, but thick vegetation, rocky ground and the extra cost have kept them from being widely used.
Q 18Which big cat, gone from Florida since the Ice Age, has been proposed as a predator to control Burmese pythons?
Jaguar
Jaguar reintroduction is only a proposal, but the cats do kill and eat giant snakes in South America today.
Q 19What weather event in January 2010 left dead Burmese pythons along Florida canal banks?
A cold snap
A cold snap killed many of the tropical snakes, yet plenty survived, and their descendants show genetic signs of better tolerance for chilly spells.
Q 20Young Burmese pythons are as comfortable on the ground as where, before growing too bulky?
In trees
In trees is where the lightweight youngsters often climb, gripping with a prehensile tail, a habit most adults give up as they gain girth.
Navigate home is what five of six displaced snakes did, crossing more than 20 kilometres to end up within 5 kilometres of where they were caught.
Q 24The popular albino Burmese python, white with butterscotch-yellow markings, cannot make which pigment?
Melanin
Melanin is the dark pigment missing in this amelanistic form, so the yellow and orange pigments show through, and it is the most widely available colour morph.
Q 25Exceptionally large Burmese pythons in Florida are known to have swallowed adults of which sizeable mammal?
Deer
Deer join a menu that stretches from mice and birds up to pigs and goats for the very biggest snakes.
Q 26Hatchling Burmese pythons slit their shells open from the inside using which temporary tool?
An egg tooth
An egg tooth does the cutting, and in snakes and lizards it is a genuine tooth growing from the front of the upper jaw, where a chick has only a hard bump on its beak.
Q 27To dissolve prey swallowed whole, a Burmese python's stomach pumps out large amounts of which chemical?
Hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid turns the kill into a semi-liquid, since the snake cannot chew, and making it is a large share of the energy bill for digestion.
Q 28Burmese pythons first reached Florida in the 1970s through which line of business?
The exotic pet trade
The exotic pet trade brought more than 90,000 of the snakes into the United States between 1996 and 2006, and many owners let go of animals that grew too big to manage.
Q 29Which native Florida wild cat has been observed raiding Burmese python nests to feed on the eggs?
Bobcat
Bobcat raids are a rare case of a native animal turning the tables, since the same cats have declined sharply where pythons are established.
Q 30Which small mammals, reintroduced to the Everglades, were wiped out by Burmese pythons within 11 months?
Marsh rabbits
Marsh rabbits released for the study fared badly from the start: pythons accounted for 77 percent of the deaths recorded.