“Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) were first introduced to Florida in the 1970s”
By accident? i.e. someone brought a baby Burmese python here as a pet and when it got really big dumped it in the Everglades? Or did they get here like:”The Asian tiger mosquito entered the United States in shipments of used tires from northern Asia in the mid-1980s.”?
A friend of mine lost one in the ‘80s.
I saw one out in a swampy/wooded area of south Dade County in 1977.
There were a few pythons sold in South Florida as “exotic pets” in the 70s and 80s, but near zero in the wild. (In the Everglades as breeding pairs.)
But! The hurricane south of Miami wiped out out two pet stores in Homestead and released all of their pythons into one small area right at the edge of the Everglades. A perfect combination for unrestricted breeding at 12-15 new snakes per year per pair.
Pet stores......................