The invasion of the Florida Everglades by an alien predator with no known enemies has reached a tipping point.
Biologists are now warning of mass extinctions of native animal populations if the invasive species is not brought under control quickly.
A Burmese python can devour prey six times its size, including whole deer and alligators. a study by three scientists with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida found.
The researchers discovered a 115.2-pound female python eating a 77-pound white-tailed deer while collecting data for the study, which appeared in the scientific journal “Reptiles & Amphibians.”
A video taken by Ian Bartoszek, one of the authors, showed that the snake’s jaw was loose enough that its mouth could fit around the deer’s entire torso.
“Watching an invasive apex predator swallow a large deer before your eyes is something you will never forget,” he said.
Scientists knew that pythons attacked foxes, bobcats, raccoons and other animals, but the discovery that they can eat creatures as large as 15-foot-long alligators has raised concerns.
‘The impact the Burmese python has on native wildlife cannot be denied. This is a wildlife problem of our time for the Greater Everglades ecosystem,” Bartoszek said.
The Everglades is a huge wetland at the southern tip of Florida. It covers 1.5 million hectares and has endangered species such as the West Indian manatee, American crocodile and loggerhead sea turtle
A 115.2-pound female Burmese python is seen devouring a 77-pound white-tailed deer somewhere in Everglades National Park
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According to the Conservancy, Burmese pythons’ “gorgeous” – the scientific term for how wide their mouths open – was as large as 9 inches in diameter based on previous studies.
Based on the three snakes that the scientists recently captured and kept in captivity, it is now clear that their gape can actually widen to 10.2 inches, or a girth of 32 inches.
Pictured: The Burmese python’s ‘gap’ today compared to the approximately 25 centimeter limit the snake previously clocked in
With such a large mouth opening, these pythons could eat animals six times larger than similarly sized snakes of different species, the Conservancy concluded.
Pythons can do this because their lower jaw bones are not fused in the front.
Their skin is also incredibly elastic, allowing them to stretch over an animal seemingly much larger than themselves.
Now that it is known that pythons in Everglades National Park can eat almost anything, the scientists who worked on the study have vowed to be more vigilant.
“Besides the large absolute size of the deer that was eaten was impressive, our anatomical measurements indicate that this deer was very close to the maximum size of prey that could be consumed by this snake,” said Bruce Jayne, a professor at the University of Cincinnati. .
He continued, “That’s why these snakes seem like overachievers, because they sometimes push the limits of what their anatomy allows, rather than being slackers who only eat ‘snack size’ prey.”
In 2022, a geoscientist who doubles as a bikini model shared footage of her and her team removing a 6-foot-long alligator from the bowels of an 18-foot-long Burmese python.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission contractors show off a Burmese python captured in the Everglades Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Pictured: Scientists perform a necropsy on a Burmese python that recently ate a large deer
Rosie Moore told DailyMail.com at the time that the python was in the Everglades. And like the Conservancy’s scientists, she too was concerned about the snakes’ impact on local wildlife.
“They called us and said there was a large object in there, we thought it was a deer or an alligator,” she said. ‘They called us and said there was a large object in there. We thought it was a deer or an alligator.”
Researchers clarified that they don’t know exactly how many Burmese pythons in the wild are actually capable of swallowing whole deer, but the Conservancy did know. identify one in 2018 who could eat a white-tailed fawn larger than the snake itself.
Burmese pythons weren’t always native to Florida. There are conflicting reports about how they became so numerous – with ‘tens of thousands‘ of them are estimated to be in the Greater Everglades – but most sources agree that they were originally pets of humans.
Floridians’ practice of domesticating the snakes dates back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, even though they are fully capable of killing and eating a human.
Burmese pythons were introduced to the state through the exotic pet trade as early as 1979, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
It is believed that many owners of these dangerous constrictor snakes did not know what to do with them when they swelled to over 200 pounds and grew up to 20 feet in length. they let them out of their cages and in the wild where they spread.
Over the past twelve years, the Conservancy’s Burmese Python Research Team has tagged 120 snakes with radio tags to continuously study their behavior in the wild. They also removed 770 adult pythons from a 150-square-mile area in southwest Florida.
University of Western Mustangs linebacker Matt Janes relaxes at home with his nine-foot Burmese python in 1986
Mary Rollins is pictured putting a Burmese python into a suitcase in September 1981
Donna Kalil poses with one of her catches. Kalil is a hunter participating in the South Florida Water Management District’s python elimination program
Jayne estimated that if each of these snakes ate just one deer as large as they could swallow, it would amount to more than 13,000 pounds of deer.
To put that in perspective, the average American eats about 224 pounds of red meat and poultry in a year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
“We have been working to remove pythons and advance the science of invasive snakes for more than a decade. These animals continue to impress us every season and one thing we have certainly learned is not to underestimate the Burmese python,” said Bartoszek.
Jayne fully agreed with his colleague, adding: ‘This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of their impact on prey populations.’