Meet the Black-headed python
With its glossy black head and banded body, this is one of Australia's most striking pythons. The black head is thought to help it warm up efficiently: it can push just its head into the sun from a burrow, heating its blood while the rest of its body stays hidden and safe.
It is a reptile specialist. Lizards such as skinks, geckos and dragons make up much of its diet, and it is well known for eating snakes, including venomous species such as the king brown (mulga) snake.
Like its cousin the woma, it lacks the obvious heat-sensing pits found on most pythons. When threatened it may hiss or even strike with its mouth closed rather than bite.
Gerard Krefft described the species in 1864 from Port Denison (now Bowen) in Queensland. Females lay clutches of eggs in late spring and coil around them until they hatch about two months later.
Where it lives
Across northern Australia from the north-west coast of Western Australia through the Top End to Queensland, avoiding the most arid deserts and the wet south-east.