17-Foot Python In Florida Park Breaks Record

Original Un-edited Article Title: 17-Foot Python In Florida Breaks Record, Park Officials Say

Non-Human Entities of all sorts fascinate me, and I am never ceased to be amazed by the incredible creatures that we (supposedly) share this planet with. I can admire the beauty and diversity of snakes, but I must be frank: they're not in my top-ten list of animals I enjoy hanging out with. I've kept a few snakes in the past, but have stuck to smaller varieties that don't need small mammals for food. I have had rodents living with me since I was a teenager, and my love for them is too strong to bear feeding them, frozen or not, to a snake.

According to one of the comments on Big Cypress Park's Facebook page, these snakes escaped from a breeding facility/pet shop in Miami during hurricane Andrew. They have been devastating native wild animal populations and the target of an effort to eradicate them from the area. The snake highlighted in this story, a pregnant female, is spectacularly ginormous and could probably consume me in just a few nibbles. I'm not sure I would make good eatin', since I don't taste like bacon or chocolate-chip cookies.

NPR SOURCE ARTICLE

In the Florida Everglades, a team of invasive species researchers got more than they bargained for – a 17-foot-long python, plus 73 developing python eggs. On Friday, Big Cypress National Preserve announced in a post to Facebook that its team of researchers had discovered the largest python ever to be removed from the swamp. The pregnant female weighed 140 pounds, though presumably some of that was egg-weight.

They found the record-breaking python using a new, and intuitive, tracking method – following male pythons on their quests for female mates. Pythons are invasive to Big Cypress, so the preserve's resource management staff works with the U.S. Geological Survey to "locate and remove" breeding pythons from the area.

Thousands of Burmese pythons live in the wild all over South Florida, according to a National Park Service fact sheet. Pet owners either release them on purpose when they get too big, or by accident when hurricanes sweep through the state. The invasive species are numerous and lethal – they kill animals and birds by squeezing them until they pass out. A 2011 study found that sightings of some of the python's favorite foods – rabbits, foxes, raccoons, white-tailed deer and opossums – have gone down by more than 90 percent in the Everglades, while python sightings have been on the rise.

Potentially disturbing and graphic video of python necropsy:

That's a properly big snake , wouldn't want to meet her on a dark night in the Everglades.
Anaconda vs 17-Foot Python , who would win ?

a reply to: seattlerat

I don't like snakes at all they need to get rid of all
of these invasive species.

originally posted by: mamabeth
a reply to: seattlerat

I don't like snakes at all they need to get rid of all
of these invasive species.

We could give mice in those areas the bubonic plague.

Easy fix.

a reply to: mamabeth

they need to get rid of all of these invasive species.

You must mean humans since they have invaded every space and left not much for anything else.

These stories always remind me of the simpsons episode where invasive lizards spread throughout Springfield.

The solution was cobras to eat the lizards
Mongooses to eat the cobras
and finally
Gorillas to kill the mongooses

The Everglades is going to change in a major way in the coming decades, pretty much no way around it. During one of the larger hurricanes an exotic snake zoo was hit pretty hard, releasing all kinds of exotic species into the environment.

originally posted by: SeaWorthy
a reply to: mamabeth

they need to get rid of all of these invasive species.

You must mean humans since they have invaded every space and left not much for anything else.

Humans are made in God's image snakes are not!

a reply to: seattlerat

I loved living in Florida and miss the warm weather, but the critters not so much.

On year we had big spiders in the garage. So I get those sticky tape traps.

Went out to the garage and there was a small snake that had skinned itself trying to get off of that thing.
Bock sick and sad at the same time.

originally posted by: mamabeth

originally posted by: SeaWorthy
a reply to: mamabeth

they need to get rid of all of these invasive species.

You must mean humans since they have invaded every space and left not much for anything else.

Humans are made in God's image snakes are not!

God made snakes and all of the crawling beauties out there they did not rebel we ruined their earth.

The problem Florida has is its environment. Pretty much every tropical anything the rest of us think nothing of keeping as pets will more or less survive if released there. So Florida is a giant mess of invasive species that people didn't want anymore like snakes, lizards, and aquarium fish and even plants.

It's sad and highlights how irresponsible people are about their pets. They think they're doing them a favor by throwing them out, but they aren't.

It also highlights the irresponsibility of the pet trade too. Certain species of fish, for example, continue to be sold as common tropicals when they will grow way too large for the average hobbyist's tank, even if you buy a 100g tank. I'm looking at you ... pacu, red-tailed catfish, common plecostomus, etc. Most people are too ignorant to do their research into whet they are getting and they end up with a tank-busting monster. Most will die, but then there are those that don't.

Other pet trades are no different. Cute baby boas and burmese for example.

a reply to: gortex

Anacondas and other constrictors seem to have a fear of the python for some reason which may be a residual instinct from an ancient ancestor, usually the python win's especially when they are of similar size but never say never - then again there have been claim's of absolutely giant anaconda's down in the amazon even a story about one that ate a fully grown horse and took a machine gun to kill it which was never officially recorded but claimed to be many time's larger than this python and another from the day's of Wickers World - remember that series - in which one was photographed from a helicopter that was claimed to be several hundred feet long in the deep and back then much less explored amazon.

Python's in the everglades are a serious danger to the eco system, eat fully grown crock's and in the Everglades quite happily eat the crock's distant cousin the alligator as well as well as actively predating other snakes AND they also eat people all of the time in places like the Congo, Burma and the other country's to which they are native.

Idiot's whom kept them as pet's then they got too big so they decided it would be a good idea to let them go, it only takes two of them a male and a female and this is the outcome, especially as the everglades have a ready supply of prey and conditions which if anything are even better for the snake's than there native region's.

Still how many boot's could you make out of that think or belt's for that matter, heck even a stylish snake skin jacket - look better on a girl though (if you could convince her to wear it) than a bloke.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Python's in the everglades are a serious danger to the eco system, eat fully grown crock's and in the Everglades quite happily eat the crock's distant cousin the alligator

The state of Florida and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission allow only 5,000 permits each year. Each permit allows its holder to hunt two alligators per season.

10,000 a year killed for sport
What is devastating is laws that allow people to devastate the population cute animals and export them for pets. Like the DART FROGS and so many others.

go for it pythons

www.crocoworld.com...

Some people are simply avid hunters, and they will go after just about anything. Crocodiles can be easier to find than some other animals to hunt. Plus, you can do it in many areas all year long. You don’t have to wait for a specific period of time or apply for a tag and hope you get lucky. Hunting very large crocodiles is common too because people love the bragging rights that comes with doing so. There is money to be made from the hides of crocodiles though which is why some people go after them. The hide is tanned a

a reply to: SeaWorthy

I am sorry to say I have to agree, I was never a crocodile fan.
But I only mentioned the crock's because of the vast ecological damage the snakes are causing over all, they are mostly eating far smaller prey but as they get bigger larger creatures and even people become viable meal's for them.
In some way's a crock attack is actually far more merciful than a python attack because the crock will kill you as fast as it can before taking your carcass to an underwater ledge to stow you until you start to rot which is how they mostly like there meat but a python will strangle you slowly, breaking your bone's as it does and you may feel your bones breaking long before you suffocate entirely then even if you are not completely dead it will swallow you whole.
They are both apex predator's in there element and both very ancient species with the crockodilia's being the older obviously but not really by that much.
Thankfully neither species - we hope - do not get as large as they once did though saltwater crock's have been known to exceed six meters in length.
But there ancestors got a lot larger.



As for those snakes, I do not like crock's but as for that duel I would rather that the crock won against the snake though in nature that is seldom how it work's out unless the crock bite's first and is very lucky with it's bite.


So the Dragon or the Serpent, neither of them are our friend's - so a good job we are an apex predator over them.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Actually, snakes don't kill you through suffocation. They've determined that animals die through circulatory collapse. The snake simply squeezes enough to stop blood flow.

www.theverge.com...

It's a lot faster than asphyxiation.

a reply to: ketsuko

An interesting distinction but no less horrible, just mean's the larger the animal the longer it will take to die as well as having the potential to become conscious if it is merely passed out while it is being ingested by the critter.