

#Setting up python for mac skin#
Their scaly, spotted skin is perfect camouflage. Despite their size, pythons are difficult to find. Experts say hundreds of thousands of them could be slithering through the Everglades today. Still, the python population in the wild is out of control. Also, Florida has banned residents from keeping them as pets. Since 2012, it has been illegal to import the snakes into the U.S. Lawmakers have tried to solve the Burmese python problem. That’s an animal or a plant that is introduced to an area and harms native species. For decades, Burmese pythons have been a threat to the Everglades ecosystem. They found that she weighed a whopping 215 pounds! The reptile is the largest Burmese python ever caught in Florida.īut the snake’s record-setting size isn’t cause for celebration.

The team had to carry the 18-foot-long python to their truck.īack at their lab, the researchers put the giant snake on a scale. After about 15 minutes of wrestling, she finally tired out. She whipped her thick tail and tried to escape. The three researchers tried to catch the big snake. But they also spotted a massive female python lurking in the bushes nearby! They used them to cut through tangled vines and thick brush. He and his team wanted to find out why Dion was there.

Ian Bartoszek is a wildlife biologist from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. Last December, Dion was spending a lot of time in a remote part of the forest. Experts hoped Dion would lead them to other pythons they could capture. The huge snake slithered through the tall, thick grass of a forest near Everglades National Park in Florida. Scientists had been tracking the male Burmese python for months. That’s because these snakes are an invasive species-an animal or a plant that is introduced to an area and harms native species. Next came the hardest part: carrying the 18-foot-long python to their truck.īack at their lab, the researchers put the giant snake on a scale and found that she weighed a whopping 215 pounds! The reptile is the largest Burmese python ever caught in Florida.īut the snake’s record-setting size isn’t cause for celebration. When they finally found Dion, they spotted a massive female python lurking in the bushes nearby!Īs the three researchers tried to catch the snake, she whipped her thick tail and tried to escape. They used long knives called machetes to cut their way through tangled vines and thick brush. Wildlife biologist Ian Bartoszek and his team from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida wanted to find out why. The huge snake, nicknamed Dion, slithered through the tall, thick grass of a forest near Everglades National Park in Florida.
