Yoda, the Zoo’s Ball Python, lives at Critter Encounter. He is a wonderful education animal because he is calm and relatively small. Yoda enjoys being handled and is a very friendly snake.

It is rare for Ball Pythons to grow longer than five feet – with four feet being average. At adult size they can be about the same size in diameter as a pop can. Young Ball Pythons grow about a foot in length for their first three years. They often live ten years in the wild and 20-30 in captivity. Yoda was born in 1994 – he is 11 years old.

They are often called “Royal pythons” or “Regal pythons” as well as Ball Pythons. When nervous or threatened the Ball Python rolls itself into a ball with its head buried beneath the folds of its body.

The natural range of these animals is western to central Africa, just north of the Equator. Ball Pythons can be found in open forests as well as drier savannahs. They are usually found in areas with good cover near open water. They “swim” to cool themselves in hot weather. These snakes spend most of their time under the ground in confiscated burrows. They can climb.

Yoda, like all Ball Pythons, is an escape artist. Once he got out of his aquarium in the Discovery Center and was gone for three months! When he emerged from his hiding place within the wall he was hungry and crabby. From then on we not only lock his cage lid on, we use a bungee cord to hold it tight!

Ball Pythons are carnivores – they eat mice, rats, and baby birds. They kill their prey by constricting it. Yoda is fed once a week during the spring and summer. During the winter he might go for a month without eating. When he is shedding – losing his skin – he doesn’t eat either.

Yoda is one of our animals that goes to schools with the Our Zoo to YOU program. He has been in several first grade classrooms in Lincoln and the surrounding area. Many of the school students think he is first class!