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Burmese pythons can stay submerged up to 30 minutes.
PHOTOGRAPH BY HEIKO KIERA , SHUTTERSTOCK
ANIMALS REPTILES
Burmese Python
Burmese pythons, one of the largest snakes in the world, are best known
for the way they catch and eat their food. The snake uses its sharp
rearward-pointing teeth to seize prey, and then coils its body around the
animal, squeezing a little tighter with each exhale until the animal
suffocates. Stretchy ligaments in their jaws allow them to swallow animals
up to five times as wide as their head!
C O M M O N N A M E : Burmese Python
S C I E N T I F I C N A M E : Python bivitattus
T Y P E : Reptiles
D I E T : Carnivore
AV E R A G E L I F E S P A N I N T H E W I L D : 20 to 25
years
S I Z E : 16 to 23 feet
W E I G H T : Up to 200 pounds
Burmese pythons are carnivores, eating mostly small mammals and
birds. But exceptionally large pythons may search for larger food items
like pigs or goats. Pythons have even been known to have attacked
and eaten alligators! They have poor eyesight, so instead they stalk
prey using chemical receptors in their tongues and heat-sensors along
their jaws.
Burmese pythons are among the largest snakes on Earth. They are
capable of reaching 23 feet (7 meters) or more in length and weighing
up to 200 pounds (90 kilograms) with a girth as big as a telephone
pole.
When they are young, Burmese pythons will spend equal time on the
ground and in the trees. But are they grow larger they tend to stay on
the ground because the trees can’t hold them anymore! They are also
excellent swimmers and can stay submerged up to 30 minutes. The
Burmese python is an invasive species in the Florida Everglades.
According to the National Park Service, tens of thousands of these
snakes exist there.
Females lay clutches of up to 100 eggs, which they incubate for two to
three months. To keep their eggs warm, they continually contract, or
shiver, their muscles. When the baby snakes hatch they use their
special egg tooth to cut their way out of their egg and the mother
leaves. The newly hatched baby python will often remain inside its egg
until it finishes shedding its first shedding of skin, then it will hunt for
its first meal all by itself.
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SNAKE CHARMERS
Burmese pythons in Florida? Yep! Research biologists Skip Snow and Mike Rochford prowl the
Everglades examining and removing these unwanted, invasive snakes.
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