Python Explodes After Eating Alligator

[joey]

Python Explodes After Eating Alligator By DENISE KALETTE, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago



MIAMI - Alligators have clashed with nonnative pythons before in Everglades National Park. But when a 6-foot gator tangled with a 13-foot python recently, the result wasn't pretty.





The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole — and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.

The species have battled with increasing frequency — scientists have documented four encounters in the last three years. The encroachment of Burmese pythons into the Everglades could threaten an $8 billion restoration project and endanger smaller species, said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor.

The gators have had to share their territory with a python population that has swelled over the past 20 years after owners dropped off pythons they no longer wanted in the Everglades. The Asian snakes have thrived in the wet, hot climate.

"Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild. ... And we here are, it's happened for the fourth time," Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.

"They were probably evenly matched in size," Mazzotti said of the latest battle. "If the python got a good grip on the alligator before the alligator got a good grip on him, he could win."

While the gator may have been injured before the battle began — wounds were found on it that apparently were not caused by python bites — Mazzotti believes it was alive when the battle began. And it may have clawed at the python's stomach as the snake tried to digest it, leading to the blow up.

The python was found with the gator's hindquarters protruding from its midsection. Its stomach still surrounded the alligator's head, shoulders, and forelimbs. The remains were discovered and photographed Sept. 26 by helicopter pilot and wildlife researcher Michael Barron.

The incident has alerted biologists to new potential dangers from Burmese pythons in the Everglades.

"Clearly, if they can kill an alligator they can kill other species," Mazzotti said. "There had been some hope that alligators can control Burmese pythons. ... This indicates to me it's going to be an even draw. Sometimes alligators are going to win and sometimes the python will win.

"It means nothing in the Everglades is safe from pythons, a top down predator," Mazzotti said.

Not only can the python kill other reptiles, the snakes will also eat otters, squirrels, endangered woodstorks and sparrows.

While there are thousands of alligators in the Everglades, Joe Wasilewski, a wildlife biologist and crocodile tracker, said its unknown how many pythons there are.

"We need to set traps and do a proper survey," of the snakes, he said. At least 150 have been captured in the last two years.

The problem arises when people buy pets they are not prepared to care for.

"People will buy these tiny little snakes and if you do everything right, they're six-feet tall in one year. They lose their appeal, or the owner becomes afraid of it. There's no zoo or attraction that will take it," so they release the snakes into the Everglades.

A reproducing snake can have as many as 100 hatchlings, which explains why the snake population has soared, Wasilewski said.

The Burmese snake problem is just part of a larger issue of nonnative animal populations in South Florida, he said. So many iguanas have been discarded in the region that they are gobbling tropical flowers and causing problems for botanists, Wasilewski said.

A 10- or 20-foot python is also large enough to pose a risk to an unwary human, especially a small child, he added.

"I don't think this is an imminent threat. This is not a 'Be afraid, be very afraid situation.'"

[JimmyDavid]

What kind of stupid statement is this "pythons get 6 feet TALL in one year"?

About the situation: The body dynamics of a python is naturaly prepared to overcome any saurian shaped creature, in the end it depends on the raw size of the 2 animals. I would say when a burmese python gets 18+ feet long, there aren't many gators out there with a good chance of winning that fight. but i don't think they will populate Florida to the point of threatening gators and other species like they are making it sound like...

[Lisa]

Here's a better written story.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/weather/environment/12820947.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_environment
---------------------------------------------------------

It's alien versus predator in Glades creature clash

A giant exotic snake's fatal mistake of trying to swallow an alligator has provided scientists with strange new evidence that pythons are continuing to spread in the Everglades.

BY CURTIS MORGAN

cmorgan@herald.com

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.

The 13-foot-snake and six-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.

As an added touch of the macabre, the snake's head was missing.

For scientists, exactly how the clash occurred is a compelling curiosity. More importantly, the latest and most extraordinary encounter provides disturbing evidence that giant exotic snakes, which can top 20 feet in length and kill by squeezing the life out of prey, have not only invaded the Everglades but 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 been tracking the spread of the snakes.

Pythons, likely abandoned by pet owners, have been seen in the Everglades since the 1980s. But in the past 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 big, scary predators also raises questions about threats to native species and whether anything indigenous -- gators, for starters -- might be capable of consuming and potentially controlling one of the world's largest snake species.

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

The discovery was important for a number of reasons.

LIVING ANYWHERE

For one, it showed the snakes are capable of living anywhere in the Everglades, Snow said. Most earlier finds have been on park fringes, roads or parking lots.

''This is the first we have documented Burmese pythons really in the heart of the slough,'' Snow said.

It also confirmed that snakes and gators, while typically consuming less troublesome mammals, turtles and birds, have an appetite for each other -- at least when the opportunity presents itself.

The first observed encounter in the park occurred three years ago when awestruck onlookers at the popular Anhinga Trail boardwalk witnessed a tussle between a 10- to 15-foot snake and six- to nine-foot gator. That fight, which lasted an estimated 24 hours, ended in an apparent draw, with both swimming off and vanishing.

Earlier this year, Snow documented a gator killing and consuming a python. The latest encounter showed that a hungry adult snake can eat a sizable gator.

Such clashes, though spawned by damaging incursion by an exotic species, can't help but fascinate both the public and scientists, said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor and expert on crocodiles and gators in the Glades.

''We've got not only two big things, but two charismatic mega-fauna -- the Burmese python, invader of the Everglades, and the American alligator, monarch of the Everglades,'' he said.

Mazzotti 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.

ASKING THE EXPERTS

He was so intrigued that he e-mailed photos and notes to other experts around the country.

So far, several theories abound, none of them pretty and all speculative because once on the scene, Snow quickly abandoned plans to load the bloated, badly decomposed carcasses on the chopper.

''We decided there was no way we were going to do that,'' he said. ``Something was going to go wrong and it was going to be nasty.''

Instead, he performed a ''floating'' necropsy in the water.

While unusual, it's not unheard of for a snake to consume prey that proves too hard or large to digest. Things like claws, hooves or bones can damage the snake's internal organs. The bulk of a victim can put pressure on the snake's lungs, essentially suffocating it from within.

Slowed by the extra weight, the snake might have been attacked by another gator, which could explain a missing python head.

Joe Wasilewski, a South Miami-Dade biologist and expert gator and crocodile tracker, examined the photos and surmised the gator wasn't quite dead when the snake swallowed it snout-first.

That's not uncommon, he said. ''That [gator] could have been kicking its hind legs and ruptured the snake's stomach wall,'' Wasilewski said.

DEAD MOVES

Mazzotti said a similar scenario could have happened even if the gator were dead because of a quirk of its nervous system. Until a gator's spinal cord is severed and literally stirred into jelly with a special tool, he said, ``a dead alligator gives a remarkably good imitation of being alive. One of the things they do is they move their legs like they're walking. Those claws are pretty sharp. It could tear through the [snake's] skin.''

Mazzotti said it's also plausible the snake scavenged a dead gator. Then time, decay and heat could explain what happened next: a nasty blowout of the snake body.

''You've got a deteriorating carcass, you've got a buildup of gases, you've got sharp claw points . . . ,'' he said.

Snow said a few wags even suggested the deaths were weird enough to fit into the plot of the new TV series Invasion, which involves aliens descending into the Everglades from strange lights during a hurricane.

The carcasses were found a week after the show debuted, he said. ``I've heard some jokes that maybe it was the lights.''

[JimmyDavid]

WHAT?? A supposed expert said the gator was still alive when the python started to eat? Impossible. They never do such thing. Only when prey is VERY dead, will a python start feeding on it.
It's clear what took place. After eating the gator, the snake (wich finds itself in an unprotected position at that point) was attacked either by another gator, by dogs or even by people.

[djc3674]

^^^ in 99.9 percent of the time that is correct. Could of been a fluke thing that the the gator was playing dead and the python starting to eat it, then the gator fought back, tearing open the burm. I know I know, it's stretching a bit, but no other way to explain why it burst open like that. I know my baby boa started eating a mouse before it was dead, so it does happen, just rarely.

[JimmyDavid]

ok. i can even grant you that small percentage.
But let's face it: So we have an "almost" dead gator, that is not able to fight back when the snake is just starting to eat him, but HE IS after being well inside the belly of the beast??? That's even more unbelivable than those "ressurection" comebacks with fallen wrestlers. LOL .

And how do you explain the missing head on the python?

[cheech]

i read an article somewhere that said the python was also missing its head....which would make me think it was possibly attacked by man as if it was another gator would it not try and eat the rest of the snake??mabye those articles that where posted in this thread explained it but im far to tired to read all of those right now.and just for the fact snakes have been seen eating antelope (sp) with the antlers still intact and they can handle those i doubt a gatorwould claw through its stomache as i agree it was more that likely the gator was dead before the snake even tried to eat it.i would say if the snakes belly was'nt cut open mabye it was killed with the large meal in its stomache and it possibly bloated in the heat and expanded to much for the belly??

[mathaldo]

Here's a bigger picture

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/americas_enl_1128543402/img/1.jpg

In my opinion it looks photoshopped, but I dont know for sure.

[JimmyDavid]

I have been reading other forums where this is being debated as well and most people are concerned about the impact that these newcomers will have on Florida wildlife.
I believe that we (humans) don't really want nature protected, but instead "contained", wich is stupid since "change" has been the key word ever since there was a planet to start with...
In the end we don't want to preserve nature, but instead preserve nature AS WE KNOW IT.
If we could leap forward 1000 years we would see a changed world, a world to wich we could no more relate. Product of many, many changes...but that's the normal path. Well, right now we are going through those changes that are inevitable and we cry. We cry not because we fear the changes...but because we fear we won't understand the outcome of those changes. And as the world of today transforms, we feel we lose the indentity of a world that was once ours...and with it also WE will fade away, because we can't freeze in time the little grace period we were granted on the surface of this world and history.

[marz]

translation...its time we gave it all back to the monkeys...