Types

• Reticulated pythons eat a variety of animals to satisfy their appetites. Among the smaller ones will be rodents and birds such as chickens and ducks when these are available. But the larger specimens can and will eat larger prey such as wild boar, deer and monkeys. Documented reports of people killed and eaten by reticulated python exist, says the Ecology Asia website. In captivity, the reticulated python's diet typically will be rats and rabbits that are frozen and then thawed for the snake to consume.
  
  

Eating Its Prey

• Like all constrictors, the reticulated python will kill its victim by first grabbing it with sharp and inward curving teeth to hold it tight and then wrapping its coils about the struggling animal. By squeezing tight, the python prevents the animal from breathing; the heart stops and the animal dies. The python then swallows the creature head first, which it accomplishes by unhinging its lower jaw to open as wide as it has to when the prey is large. The ligaments that connect the jaw to the skull stretch and let the snake's mouth open wide enough to take in its victim.
  
  

Human Commensal

• The term human commensal applies to the reticulated python. This means that the snake adapts to living around human beings but rarely interacts with people, knowing that its life will be easier as food is more plentiful. By living in proximity to people, even in places such as large cities within its range, the python will gain easy access to prey such as cats, dogs, chickens and rats.
  
  

Young Python Diet

• The baby reticulated pythons hatch from eggs and must immediately begin to try to find food on their own. The newborns are as long as 35 inches but weigh only around 5 ounces. At this point in their young lives, they are capable of killing and eating smaller animals such as rats, mice, frogs, toads and lizards. But they too are on the menu of many creatures, with potential enemies in hawks and other birds of prey, snakes such as cobras, wild pigs and large lizards.
  
  

Considerations

• After eating a large meal, the reticulated python will have a noticeable bulge in its body. The snake's skin expands so the reptile may eat and then eventually digest a large animal. The snake avoids suffocating during the eating process via a tube in its mouth that can stay open to take in air as the snake swallows. The swallowing comes about via strong muscular contractions that actually can pull the meal down the throat of the python.