‘Great Snakes!’: A systematic literature review of the family Pythonidae highlighting conservation concerns

Abstract

Globally, many snake species are declining because of anthropogenic factors such as changing land use, illegal killing, unsustainable harvesting and poaching. Many of the larger snake species are particularly affected. The family Pythonidae consists of 38 species over 11 genera − many of which are relatively large in size. We conducted a systematic literature search using two search engines and found 512 peer-reviewed publications on members of the Pythonidae family. Since the first publication in 1844, scientific research on the family has increased steadily, with a major increase since 2000. The majority of these papers were focused on single species (84.7 %) and focussed on snakes in captivity (60.1 %). The most commonly researched species was Python regius (37.7 %), followed by Python bivittatus (16.8 %), and the most common topic researched was medical (30.3 %), which encompassed studies on anatomy, development, medication, digestion, nutrition etc. The geographical areas where the most research has been conducted on pythons in their natural habitat were Australia and Oceania. While a relatively large amount of research has been done on this family, it is apparent that there is a strong bias towards captive-bred animals and not enough research on wild individuals. With the increasing anthropogenic pressures, this could lead to misinformed decisions in conservation efforts. We recommend that future work be conducted on these snakes in their natural environments to allow for informed decisions to be made for their protection. We also recommend that emphasis be placed on the species listed in the IUCN red data list as data deficient and the other species that are under-represented.