Florida snake catchers have caught almost one dozen snakes at once by hauling in balls of writhing Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus). According to The Guardian the catch weighed more than 500 pounds. The mating pythons captured brings the total weight of pythons harvested in one part of Florida to over 34,000 pounds since 2013.
The snakes were vying for the right to mate with a female. According to the paper:
“The catch of a total of 11 pythons was a record for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida (CSWF), the Miami Herald reported – and it adds to the total of 34,000lb of pythons captured in that part of the state since 2013.
Pythons, which are native to south-east Asia, made their way to Florida through the pet trade beginning in the 1970s, according to the CWSF. They have since established themselves as the apex predator across the Everglades region and are responsible for a 90% decline in native mammal populations.
“For 10 years, we’ve been catching and putting them down humanely,” CWSF biologist Ian Bartoszek wrote in a post on Facebook.
“You can’t put them in zoos and send them back to south-east Asia. Invasive species management doesn’t end with rainbows and kittens. These are remarkable creatures, here through no fault of their own. They are impressive animals, good at what they do.”
The CWSF found three snakes coiled in one mating ball. There were six in another “writhing’”, 7ft-wide mating ball, the Miami Herald reported. Two more pythons were captured nearby.
According to an article titled Animal Sex: How Snakes Do It on the website Live Science, snakes will form a mating ball in the days after they emerge from hibernation.
“Within the snake mass, each male will try his best to get the female to open her cloaca (waste and reproductive orifice) so that he can insert his penis and mate with her,” Live Science wrote.
“Sometimes, males will resort to force by suffocating the female and inducing a stress response in which she opens her cloaca to release feces and musk – giving sneaky males an opportunity to mate.” (Links in original)
Pythons and other invasive snakes are considered a major invasive threat in Florida. Florida is responding with a variety of measures including an annual hunt. But the recent discovery that the pythons have been cross-breeding is worrisome. It may suggest the hybrids may be better suited to colder weather and may actually begin to move out of Florida to cooler, drier climates. The mating pythons captured does put a dent of 34,000 pounds of snake in the python population.