Florida's Snakes in the Grass

It's another short lunch hour, and that means another animal story.

Lee Dye at ABC News reported Wednesday on Florida's problems with Burmese Pythons, a non-native species.

Although elusive by nature, these giant snakes have been seen doing battle with alligators, climbing trees fast enough to catch nesting chicks and swallowing animals as large as wood storks.

And they can be particularly hazardous on the highways. Any motorist could lose control when suddenly confronted by a reptile that can grow to 20 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds.

Wildlife ecologist Frank Mazzotti of the University of Florida in Gainesville estimates there could be thousands of them in Florida, and he's leading an effort to bring the population under control.

"Burmese pythons are right in the heart of Everglades National Park," Mazzotti says. And they are wreaking havoc on the system, eating everything from gray squirrels to bobcats and threatening efforts to restore native species to the park.

Unfortunately, it's an ideal home for pythons. They are "habitat generalists," meaning they like to live between wet and dry areas, and they like to climb trees, and they are good swimmers, and there's lots of animals for them to eat. That's also just the kind of environment that appeals to alligators. "

So here they are, hanging out in the same places, doing the same things," Mazzotti says. "And on more than one occasion, several of which were witnessed by the public, they have gotten in fights."

Last fall one python tried to swallow an alligator. The alligator ended up swallowing the python, but the snake was too big to go down all at once. So for a couple of days the alligator wandered around with the tip of the python hanging out of its mouth until the rest could be digested.

Now, that's appetizing!

I've never been to Florida. And this article makes me a little glad I've never been to Florida. But someday I might want to see Walt Disney World (so I can say that Disneyland is way better), so I hope Mazzotti and his colleagues are successful in at least keeping the pythons out of Orlando.