Ssssummertime and The Living is Easy for Burmese Pythons in Florida

Summers have produced several record-breaking news on Burmese pythons. In July 2023, the longest python was caught by two local hunters in South Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve and was brought to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida for measurement and documentation. The Burmese python measured 19 feet and 125 pounds – the height of a male giraffe!

In July 2022, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida team caught a whopping 215-pound female Burmese Python, measuring nearly 18 feet long. According to the Conservancy, another record-breaking discovery was finding 122 developing eggs inside the python’s abdomen!

On July 9, 2024, Ian Easterling, a member of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s Environmental Science team and the Burmese Python Research and Removal Team, was a speaker at the Collier County Museum at Government Center on the Research and Removal Efforts in SW Florida and on the destructive effects of this invasive species in the Everglades Ecosystem. 

According to FWC, the Burmese Python is native to Southeast Asia and one of the largest snakes in the world. Easterling shared that it all started with the exotic pet trade in the 1970s. People saw this beautiful creature at an Exotic Pet Shop and said, “It might be really cool if I could take this home, put it in a tank, and watch it grow.” In captivity, the pet pythons grew big, 

The unwanted snakes were released into the wild where they got established quickly. The first Python was found in the Everglades in 1979. In 1992, pythons from exotic pet breeding facilities were released into the Everglades when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida.

Pythons are incredibly adaptable, and in the wild, a yearling can get up to seven feet in its first year, eating mice, rabbits, raccoons, opossums, and birds. Soon, bigger prey, such as the white-tailed deer, is on the menu. This is also the primary prey for the Florida Panther.

Easterling added, “Pythons have wiped out probably 90% of all the medium-size mammals in the Eastern Everglades National Park according to surveys done ten years ago.”

Pythons can detect prey with their fork tongue, which is equipped with heat-sensitive sensors. Once prey is located, they grab them with their large hook teeth and then throw their massive coil around, squeezing or constricting their prey until blood flow is cut off before swallowing them whole. 

The python is a generalist apex predator, and Easterling added that the list of things they don’t eat is a lot shorter than the list of things they eat. But they have not recorded pythons eating turtles, frogs, or cane toads, and they don’t usually eat other snakes, but they have been recorded eating iguanas and alligators.

Summertime is foraging time for both male and female pythons, who consume plenty of food. The male needs energy to be able to travel far and wide searching for a female to mate and a female will try to store up enough energy so she can make those eggs and incubate them. Female pythons will sit on the eggs for two months without eating or drinking. During the hot summer months, pythons will stay sedentary during the day, but at night, they are often spotted crossing levees or roadways. 

Since 2013, the Conservancy and its research partners have been conducting radio-telemetry fieldwork during the breeding season, which runs from November to March, to document python biology and behavior. “Females are difficult to detect, but the males are really good at sniffing them out,” added Easterling.

The Scout program is tagging males with radio transmitters and deploying them in their home range to find the breeding females. Right now, the Conservancy has about 40 male scouts in the program with the objective of preventing the females from laying eggs. 

How many pythons are there in the wild? That’s the Holy Grail question. According to Easterling, “Nobody really knows as we are spending a lot of time playing catch-up.”

How can you identify a Burmese python? According to Easterling, “By the giraffe-like saddle patterns along their back. If a snake is approximately six feet long and thicker than a forearm with no distinct rattle on its tail, it is most likely a Burmese python or a non-invasive species.”

If you are unsure, take a photo and share it with responders. For the sake of safety, inexperienced residents should avoid disturbing or attempting to capture the snake. Please call the FWC Hotline (888-483-4681) so they can dispatch an experienced responder.