Pythons in Florida, Vanish!!!!, VIDEO

about a month ago i posted a thread about invasive snake species in Florida, now i am glad to post this thread,

www.cnn.com...#/video/us/2010/04/01/am.zarrella.pythons.vanish.cnn?hpt=C2

here is a link to the video, it appears that this record cold winter for Florida has helped to eradicate 50-60% of the Burmese Python's that have invaded Florida, and that's just a conservative number, Florida is not out of the woods yet, after a few more warm winters the snakes may be back. But for now at least, they natural balance of nature can get back to work

I have a friend that's a herpetologist and he's out in the everglades studying the python invasion.

Besides the pythons we have wild hogs and monitor lizards to deal with in florida also.

The hogs are especially dangerous and can hurt humans.
and monitor lizards are scary to look at.

hmmm interesting

i would be willing to bet that they are just hibernating in hidding spots right now though, i know the behaviors of tarantulars and big snakes can be similiar sometimes, my pet tarantula often can go weeks or months without eating during the cold season (i allow the room it is kept in to remain close enough to outside temps to allow her to know what season it is) i'm pretty sure snakes metbolism and whatnot work similiarly since they are cold blooded and would need to retreat during cold anyways, and for the most part a snakes life is mostly just sitting in a hole or under a log for a week or so, and coming out once to eat, then going back to it's hole again to repeat the process, they are masters of boredom and are not upset by long hibernation or periods of no food and seclusion,

i'm sure alot actually did die, i've always been interested in how these breed of snakes will adapt to north america, and rest assured, they somehow will eventually

6 years ago, in Tampa, FL, I was laying in my hammock on the big back porch and heard some noises from behind. Eventually I spotted a large green iguana hanging of the singles of the shed that was right behind my hammock zone. Took me a minute to spot him as I would never expect anything hanging off the shingles.

So I got the nerve to grab a hold of him...
and made the mistake of doing it while not wearing a shirt...
I grabbed him with both hands and whamo!

Despite grabbing him behind each set of 'shoulders', he twisted and thrashed despite me holding on tight. He kept smacking me all over with his tail... like rapid fire...
after about aminute or so I finally just released him...
He just sat there on the ground staring at me....

Maybe he was patting himself on the back and was savoring the moment as I was looking at my arms with 3-6" bleeding cuts all the way up and down them from his very long toes w/ long claws, and tail welts all over my chest...

He decided to stop by about a week later and actually had the nerve to come up to the back steps right near my hammock. I harassed him but didn't grab him this time.

Was the greenest, shiniest, and healthiest large lizard I've ever seen.

[edit on 1-4-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Originally posted by grey580
I have a friend that's a herpetologist and he's out in the everglades studying the python invasion.

Besides the pythons we have wild hogs and monitor lizards to deal with in florida also.

The hogs are especially dangerous and can hurt humans.
and monitor lizards are scary to look at.

Right after the cold snap i told everyone that the snakes would be dieing off. They cant live in temps under 55 degrees. Everyone laughed at me.

Monitors are not scary.




[edit on 3-4-2010 by Darkice19]