MOTHER OF ALL SNAKES!
Record-setting 18-foot, 215-lb. python caught in Florida swamp
FLORIDA wildlife honchos bagged the largest invasive Burmese python in state hisss-tory, a massive monster measuring nearly 18 feet and tipping the scales at a whopping 215 pounds!
Scientists believe the supersized female serpent — packed with a record 122 developing eggs — may even be one of the original pet snakes that were wrongly released decades ago and spawned the Sunshine State’s ongoing python plague!
According to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the behemoth was subdued in the Everglades in December after a 20-minute tussle with brave biologists.
Ian Easterling recalls trying to wrangle the animal’s brick-sized head and getting clubbed in the eye!
“It felt like a fist,” he reveals.
The euthanized critter’s corpse was stashed in a conservancy lab freezer until this year. The organization says a necropsy discovered the hoof cores of a whitetailed deer in the stomach of the slithering menace, which is considered one of the state’s most concerning invasive species. Experts say deer are a primary food source for endangered Florida panthers, which means pythons are putting the big cats at risk by gobbling up their vittles!
The astonishing capture was part of the conservancy’s python removal program, which began in 2013. Since then, the group has harvested more than 1,000 of the reptiles — weighing collectively more than 26,000 pounds — from a 100-square-mile area!
The trappers use male scout snakes fitted with radio transmitters, which lead scientists to breeding grounds and help them snag reproductive females and prevent eggs from hatching in the wild.
“The removal of female pythons plays a critical role in disrupting the breeding cycle of these apex predators that are wreaking havoc on the Everglades ecosystem and taking food sources from other native species,” explains the conservancy’s biologist Ian Bartoszek.
But even with all of the damage a python can cause, Bartoszek admits, “It’s a beautiful animal.”