Posted on 10/05/2005 2:00:49 PM PDT by george76
Scientists in Florida are puzzling over a 13-foot Burmese python that scarfed down a 6-foot alligator before its stomach ruptured.
The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole -- and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.
The species have battled with increasing frequency -- scientists have documented four encounters in the last three years...
"Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild. ... And here we are, it's happened for the fourth time," Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.
"They were probably evenly matched in size," Mazzotti said of the latest battle. "If the python got a good grip on the alligator before the alligator got a good grip on him, he could win."
The incident has alerted biologists to new potential dangers from Burmese pythons in the Everglades.
"Clearly, if they can kill an alligator they can kill other species," ...
At least 150 have been captured in the last two years.
"People will buy these tiny little snakes and if you do everything right, they're six-feet tall in one year. They lose their appeal, or the owner becomes afraid of it. There's no zoo or attraction that will take it," so they release the snakes into the Everglades.
A reproducing snake can have as many as 100 hatchlings, which explains why the snake population has soared, Wasilewski said. The Burmese snake problem is just part of a larger issue of nonnative animal populations in South Florida, he said. So many iguanas have been discarded in the region that they are gobbling tropical flowers and causing problems for botanists, Wasilewski said.
A 10- or 20-foot python is also large enough to pose a risk to an unwary human, especially a small child...
(Excerpt) Read more at local6.com ...
There has got to be an easier way to have a meal.
OH, MAN--what ever happened to the free market?
if snakeheads and pythons are outlawed, only outlaws will have snakeheads and pythons!!!!
(just kidding--these things give me the creeps. did anyone see "frankenfish"?)
Joe is a rare critter in the 'Glades - someone with a considerable amount of time actually spent in the habitats. But the larger problem is the faulty management premises of the Armed & Rangerous from the Department of The Inferior.
Lest one think I am being needlessly harsh, consider this: One such huge python was seen wrapped around a large gator at the Shark Valley facility off US 41. Ranger Randy and Rangerette Jeanette watched the clearly non-native python trying to kill the native alligator. Neither one either captured or simply shot the python.
Both python and snake were reported to have survived the disagreement over the menu that time.
Here's just a remote, barely possible, reason they didn't kill the snake. It will breed and soon there will be reason to have a python control bureaucracy.
It was the Department of the Inferior being inferior. Move along! Nothing new about this!
I found a 10-12 foot python someone had shot with a shotgun and left laying on a trail in a mangrove swamp in South Miami 30 years ago. Scared the bejebbers out of me.
"I never thought they could explode either."
Maybe the high level of mercury in the gator "fulminated" in the snake digestive tract and caused the explosion.
That would be an 'organic' chemical reaction, wouldn't it? ;-)
Carrying a combat shotgun is hard work. I have a high water event at my place in the Everglades right now. Fish are swimming through what was once lawn. Panther are raising their young alongside my place, and my newest concern is whether the 11 foot gator is large enough to kill off any pythons in my pond.
Bad news is the big gator seems to be missing.
And I am getting tired of having to keep a Redhawk on my belt all the time.
Note to Blue staters, a Redhawk isn't a bird. I once had falcons; trust me when I tell you it isn't a bird.
That's what I'd like to know also
Thanks that explains it a lot better.
That is a real "Tums" moment
Might you be referring to these pictures?
After Katrina there were emails circulating that stated that the crocodilian seen above was an Alligator, and that it had eaten the dead left laying on the screen
The truth is that the creature in the picture is not an alligator. It is a Nile crocodile, the second largest crocodilian in the world (the largest is the Australian Salt-water crocodile). The Nile crocodile is found throughout most of Africa, and it is a veritable man-killer and man-eater. And they can grow to prodigious lengths ....the crocodile in the picture is 16 feet long (the email said that the 'alligator' was 21-22 feet long ....it is neither an alligator, nor is it 21-22 ft long), but Nile crocs have been known to get up to 20 feet and maybe more than that. I once saw a Nile crocodile nab a Wildebeest, and I tell you this ....that thing was a monster. The head alone seemed the size of the Wildebeest (which is roughly the size of a cow).
This crocodile (the one in the pic that emails claimed was an 'alligator') was killed in the Republic of the Congo. Alligators never get close to crocodile sizes, and this beast was thousands of miles away from New Orleans.
I'm not sure whether that is the email you are talking about, but the fact that it mentioned a '22 foot long alligator' makes it seem as if it is the same one (and gators do not even get that large ....the only crocodilians that can get that big are the Salt-water croc from Australia, the Nile croc from Africa, and maybe in a blue-moon the Mugger croc from India. All are killers, all are huge, neither is an alligator).
http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/crocodile.asp#photo2
Wow. I bet those are the exact photos he was shown. When he stops by my office this morning, I'll show him your post. It appears as though the gents who showed him the pictures and relayed the story were had. He'll have a ball with this info. Thanks and my apologies for propagating the rumor.
I like snakes of all types. But my wife can not overcome her fear of them. If I had a snake in the house, I'd have no wife in the house. And my wife is my best friend.
The only good snake is a dead snake. Saw a pic of the python with that gater hanging out his busted belly in the morning paper. Made me smile!
meanie
I am not to found of gators either
I think they're cute.
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