Giant Python Moves In

A jaw-dropping 19-foot-long snake skeleton now hangs in a first-floor hallway at the Lab of Ornithology. It belongs to "Ralph" the reticulated python. In life, the snake measured 26 feet, weighed more than 165 pounds, and was most likely a female, based on its large size.

Photo by Susan Spear/CLO

Norman McJunkin collected the python during a 1915 hunting trip in the Philippines. A few haphazard night-time shots fired at rustling tree branches brought down the huge python. She was left among giant ant mounds while the hunt continued. The group returned to find hungry ants had stripped the skeleton clean of the flesh and vivid brown and white, diamond-patterned skin. The McJunkin family dubbed the python "Ralph." This year, Reed L. McJunkin (College of Engineering, Class of '32) donated the skeleton to the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, housed at the Lab of Ornithology.

Specialists from Cornell and Lehigh universities painstakingly put the python back together, reassembling more than 1,000 bones. They found at least 50 ribs had been broken and then healed, and evidence that the python survived at least three violent incidents. More than 100 ribs are missing along with a few smaller parts—understandable given the difficulty McJunkin would have had in recovering all the pieces. But the effect is still breathtaking as the magnificent skeleton appears to undulate down the wall in its massive wooden case.

—Pat Leonard

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu