It took six keepers and a lot of courage to bring the Park's two biggest snakes to the weigh-in.
Picture six zookeepers navigating through a crowd of school holiday visitors, carefully carrying two pythons with a combined weight of 77 kilograms. That was the scene at the Australian Reptile Park this World Snake Day, as the team brought out two of the Park's most impressive residents for a live weigh-in at the daily reptile show.
To mark World Snake Day, the Australian Reptile Park put its largest snakes, Burmese python Jockey and Reticulated python Fang, on the scales in front of a live crowd, revealing some seriously impressive growth over the past year.
First up was Jockey, a Burmese python who has called the Park home for 20 years. Last year he tipped the scales at 34kg. This year? A whopping 37kg.
"The big fella Jockey is our biggest Burmese python. He's been with us for the last 20 years. Burmese pythons can exceed six metres in length," said Dylan Wallis, Head Reptiles Keeper.
Then came Fang, a female Reticulated python who is quietly on track to break Park records. She grew from 35kg last year to 42kg, and at around four and a half metres long, she still has plenty of growing to do. Reticulated pythons are the world's largest snake species, capable of reaching over eight metres in length and exceeding 100kg when fully grown.
"Reticulated pythons are the world's largest species of snake. They can grow up and over eight metres in length, and Fang, she's getting close," said Dylan.
Getting snakes of that size from their enclosures to the show pit is, as Dylan put it plainly, no small task, and not without a reminder of just how extraordinary these animals are.
"These are snakes that are capable of eating someone," said Dylan.
The crowd was hooked from the moment the snakes appeared. Visitors called out their weight guesses before the big reveal, and once the scales had spoken, keepers took both pythons through the crowd for an up-close encounter. The weigh-in was just the beginning, World Snake Day brought extra snake milkings in the morning show and a chance to see some of the Park's exotic venomous species too.
Jockey and Fang are on display at the Australian Reptile Park in Somersby on the Central Coast, just one hour from Sydney or Newcastle. Come and see just how big these incredible animals really are