Posted on 05/15/2008 9:54:51 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home, potentially threatening other southeastern states, a study said.
"Pythons are likely to colonize anywhere alligators live, including north Florida, Georgia and Louisiana," said Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences professor, in his two-year study.
The pythons thriving in Florida are mostly Burmese pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in the wild.
From 2002-2005, 201 of the beasts were caught by state authorities, but in the last two years the number has more than doubled to 418, Mazzotti said in his study published on the university website.
The largest python caught so far in Florida measured five meters (16.4 feet) and weighed 70 kilograms (154 pounds).
Mazzotti said the serpents, despite their awesome size, are not poisonous, but are excellent swimmers and able to cover great distances in little time. Some, trapped and released with radio transmitters, swam 60 kilometers (37 miles) in a few hours.
Highly adaptable, pythons prey on cats, dogs, hares, foxes, squirrels, raccoons and even alligators, allowing them to thrive in a variety of environments.
After populating the Florida Everglades -- a vast marshland -- where it is estimated they number 30,000, the giant python is now spreading across the rest of the peninsula.
"Females may store sperm, so they can produce fertile clutches for years. And a 100-something pound snake can easily be producing 60, 80 eggs a year," said Mazzotti, adding that the reptile could eventually populate the entire southern United States.
But the pythons will assimilate (sarc)
Time to start python hunting!
Florida should put a fifty-dollar bounty on each snake.
For only 1.5 million dollars the problem is solved or at least managed for a supposed thirty-thousand feral pythons.
But then there’s the State and Federal apparatus that would have to administer and oversee the bounty (multiply taxpayer costs times 100)
Oh well nice thought anyways.
Actually, there was a picture going around the web of a dead Burmese whose stomach ruptured after he killed an adult ‘gator, and almost succeeded in swallowing it.
John Cleese? Eric Idle? Terry Gilliam? Terry Jones? Michael Palin?
“And now for something completely different...a moose biting someone’s sister.”
Sorry don't have a receipt, as it wasn't on my Thai Restaurants menu.
Grilled with ginger and nuoc mam? Oh, yeeessss! Try it, if you haven’t!!
In Thai that would be Nam Pla.
"Not to worry. They are the natural prey of Killer Bees. At least the Killer Bees that survive attacks from Fire Ants."
Not to worry. They are the natural prey of Killer Bees. At least the Killer Bees that survive attacks from any Fire Ants that survive attacks from Rasbury Ants.
There, fixed it for you, LOL.
;^)
It’ll take a 30 foot python to swallow that.Besides, he’s under the protection of Greenpeace..
Yes, but can they survive an attack from the new Raspberry ants? LOL
The world would be a much better & happier place for their removal.
These Environmentalists liars are responsible for more misery, taxes, disease and deaths to almost rival the mosquito!!
So the pythons could be put to good use then.
Florida's Finest and "Good eatin'"
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