There has been a lot of talk about Burmese Pythons. Just yesterday, the Sun Sentinel reported that an adult deer, weighting 76 pounds, was found intact inside a huge Burmese Python. Sounds incredible, doesn't it? This snake is a menace to wildlife in The Everglades. It can catch its prey in the light or at night eating the equivalent of its body weight in one year.
The Burmese Python is one of the giant snake species of the world and has almost four hundred sets of ribs. Because its spine is so flexible, it can twist along the ground allowing it to move without legs.
Photo by Lori Oberhofer, National Park Service.
Burmese Python Data
We have all sorts of invasive species in Florida from certain invertebrate, plants, trees and aquatic animals--from the Florida holly to the blue tilapias that challenge our ecosystem in the Everglades. The Burmese Python is, by far, the most dangerous. No one knows how they arrived here but it has been reported that there are thousands, perhaps 100,000 living in the water or the trees of Everglades National Park consisting of 1.5 million acres.
As most of us have an innate fear of any type of snake, Burmese Pythons are usually 8 to 13 feet long but it has been reported they can be 20 feet weighing up to 200 pounds. According to the Washington Post, since 2000, 1,496 Burmese pythons have been "removed" -- i.e, destroyed or captured for field research -- in and around Everglades National Park, including 367 last year and 162 through May 9 of 2010.
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