Brumese Python Eats Alligator

[Junkyard]

I have been hearing on the radio today that in Florida a burm ate a 6.5 foot alligator, though died during the struggle and there are pictures floating around. Has any else heard this? I would like to know is this is a farce story or not. Thanks

[Tears_and_Fangs]

A 6.5 Alligator you say???!!!!!!! OMG!!! I hope someone can drag some more info and pics up on this! Thanks for sharing, Micheal.

[Jim O]

The story is reprinted here at http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72334.

You can also see it at http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/05/gater.python.ap/index.html along with a picture:

[South Dixie Dragons]

do you know where is Florida is was suppose to have happend? I live in Florida and have not heard anything about it...



nevermind..I see it..

[Bighaze]

It was down in the glads, this time the burm won, last two I had heard of the gator won, and then there was a tie a few years back.


With the number of burms getting out of hand down there, I'm sure we will see a lot of reports like this in the next few years.

The sad thing is this will more then likely mean more laws and a harder time if your one of us burm keepers in Fl. Even though these are 100% wild burms, and not pets. 10-20 years ago yea it was people letting there pets loose, but now they have been breeding for years.

[Junkyard]

Thanks Jim, I never looked at that thread the title threw me off so I did not bother with it. Though to me it does not look like the burm won, I would call it a draw. :rolleyes:

[snakeyman]

yea i saw that article last night and it was NOT a 6.5' berm..

heres the article that I read:

A meeting between two of the largest and fiercest predators in the Everglades--a Burmese python and an American alligator--ended in a scene as rare as it was bizarre.

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The 13-foot snake and 6-foot gator both wound up dead, locked so gruesomely it is hard to make heads, tails or any other body part of either creature.

When the carcasses were found last week in an isolated marsh in Everglades National Park, the gator's tail and hind legs protruded from the ruptured gut of a python, which had swallowed it whole.

For scientists, exactly how the clash occurred is a compelling curiosity. More important, the encounter provides evidence that giant exotic snakes not only have invaded the Everglades but also could challenge the native gator for a perch atop the food chain.

"It's just off-the-charts absurd to think that this kind of animal, a significant top-of-the-pyramid kind of predator in its native land, is trying to make a living in South Florida," said park biologist Skip Snow, who has tracked the snakes' spread.

Likely abandoned by pet owners, pythons have been seen in the Everglades since the 1980s. But in the last two years alone, Snow has documented 156 python captures, a surge that has convinced biologists the snakes are multiplying in the wild.

The growing population of such large predators also raises questions about threats to native species and whether anything indigenous--gators, for starters--might be able to consume and potentially control the large snake species.

The latest find was spotted floating in a spike rush marsh on Sept. 26 by Michael Barron, a helicopter pilot flying park researchers to tree islands. Snow examined it the next day.

The discovery indicates that the snakes can live anywhere in the Everglades, Snow said. Most earlier finds have been on park fringes, roads or parking lots.

It also confirmed that snakes and gators have an appetite for each other.

Earlier this year, Snow documented a gator killing and eating a python. The latest encounter showed that a hungry adult snake will attempt to eat a sizable gator.

Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor and expert on crocodiles and gators in the Everglades, said size would probably dictate which species would win most encounters, and scientists could only speculate why this one ended in double deaths.

Snow's detailed field notes provide some evidence the snake was the attacker: There were wounds on the gator's head and "large wads of alligator skin" in what remained of the snake's digestive tract.

[Junkyard]

yea i saw that article last night and it was NOT a 6.5' berm..


Who said it was a 6.5 foot burm?

[snakeyman]

i thought that the poster said it was a 6.5 berm but it was a "berm ate a 6.5 aligator" misread it, i didnt have my morning coffee.. my bad

[bobbyvon]

I live in central FL,but all my family live next to the Everglades.They receive calls from cops to come remove snakes from houses and yards.So far this year they have removed 3 pythons.2 of them were 8foot and the other was 12.We have been seeing allot of nonnative species here lately.I hope the natives can handle them but I think the huge pythons are gonna be the new rulers of the Everglades. :eatsmiley

[bobbyvon]

MSNBC.com has it.Gator-guzzling python comes to messy end.There is a video about the growing numbers of pythons in the Everglades :spectator

[Bighaze]

They are already taking polls, the law makers are talking, and I fear my right to keep burms is in jeapordy. This is going too far, I don't know what the hell they are thinking, but stoping people from keeping burms will not help with the burms breeding in the wild, will it? Can anyone see it helping? They are just trying to make it look like they are doing something, and at my(not mine alone, all burm keepers) expence.

[Junkyard]

Do they have a population control on Burms in Florida? Going after indivduals who own them is not going to stop any breeding out in the wild. Is the snake population in Florida as bad as it sounds, the way media portrays the snake population(I rarely believe the media in the first place which is why I ask), is that it is common to see a snake everyday outside the cities. What is your experience?

[Jim O]

There are well established breeding populations of many non-native species in Florida, including Burmese Pythons.

[bobbyvon]

I was raised around the Glades and I have never seen one until recently.There are many other kinds if you are in the right spot at the right time.Kings,corns,yellows and greens are what I see mostly.I have allot of people tell me they see BUNCHES of snakes but to them 3 in a month is a bunch.I sometimes will see a few rattlers or cottonmouths but allot of times I have to look hard to find them.The way the cities are growing they are having to develop the snakes habitat into housing complexes.Soon the only place they will have to live are places is the Everglades :>poke2<: