A few months ago, in a post about foreclosures, we included a photo of a Burmese python that had been caught in the Florida Everglades. The photo fired our readers’ imaginations, with one commenting that she had “suspected my x had once again fallen into the hands of the law.”
Well last week, The New Yorker published a 10-page essay on Burmese pythons in Florida. A few interesting facts:
- After escaping from terrariums, Burmese pythons have thrived in the Everglades.
- The creatures can grow to more than 25 feet in length
- They can swallow a leopard whole
- A Burmese python swallowed an alligator while it was alive, only to have its “belly burst open [with] the alligator’s hind legs protuding out of it like a pair of vestigial limbs. Some biologists speculated that the victim woke up inside the snake and tried to kick itself free or clawed through in its death throes.”
- Burmese pythons’ natural range may be as large as one third of the United States.
Anyway, we thought our blog readers ought to know.