Climate

Do Snakes Have a Place in Singapore?

Published

November 9, 2023

By

Xiaoyun

Why are pythons still around in Singapore, our ‘modern, urban, developed city’?

The assumption is that pythons should have gone locally extinct long ago with all the other large predators — the tiger & clouded leopard.

Instead, they are the most common type of snakes found in Singapore.

Far from sight due to their typically shy nature, pythons have adapted to our drains, pipes and canals criss-crossing the island, eating rats, lizards, toads, and fish, that have also integrated and adapted to our urban systems

Why they come out of the longkang?

Pythons will eat anything they can catch. If you had to prepare your own food which takes two hours or simply could tabao McDonald’s or anything from Grab Delivery, what would you choose? In an urban setting, pythons thus develop a new taste for rubbish chute rats and sometimes, community cats, on top of its regular fare.

Ok then?

Within our culture and media that villianises and dramatises snakes, getting to truly know the nature of snakes can be harder than we think.

In fact, MOST snakes are non-confrontational and harmless to humans — they’d really rather slither away than pick a fight! Knowledge & awareness can go so far in reducing human-wildlife(snake) conflicts.

These majestic creatures of the tropics are worthy of our admiration and understanding; its time we renew, and shed the strangling stereotypes coiling around them.

..Why did the python go to the market?

Because we first crossed into the forest.