The idea behind the largest reticulated python has an interesting history. For decades the search has been on for a python longer than 28.5 feet, the length of a snake named Colossus, to be held in captivity. Longer snakes have been found, but never kept in a zoo.
Colossus resided in Pennsylvania at the Highland Park Zoo during the 1950s and 1960s. In a crazy turn of events, after her death, she was supposed to be on display as a skeleton, but was apparently lost or misplaced and still has never been found.
The longest snake ever found was a reticulated python, and measured in at 32.75 feet, but was never held in captivity. It was simply a specimen.
The heaviest snake ever recorded was a Burmese python, a type of “retic” as they are known, at a weight of 403 pounds and was on display in the American state of Illinois.
In 2003, a reticulated python with the reported length of 49 feet and weight of 983 pounds was supposedly captured in Indonesia. The world-wide media caught onto the news and word spread like wildfire. It was later discovered the the snake’s size was a great exaggeration and it wasn’t really close to the world record, let alone big enough to shatter it by those epic proportions.