MIAMI — As if one giant python weren't enough, a cluster of captures in a single square mile of west Miami-Dade has scientists worried about a new species spreading across South Florida.
And this constrictor makes the Burmese python that has already pushed deep into the Everglades seem almost cuddly. The snake is the African rock python, a relative similar in size, appearance and appetite but considered much more aggressive.
"They are just mean, vicious snakes," said Kenneth Krysko, senior herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. "You couldn't get a worse python to become established. A Burmese python is just a docile snake. These things will lunge at you."
Only six African pythons have been recovered in South Florida since 2002.
The most notable came four years ago, when a 10-footer pretty much captured itself in a turkey coop when it swallowed a bird too large to let the snake slip back out through the wire mesh. Pythons squeeze the life out of prey, biting, crushing and then swallowing meals whole.
In 2005, scientists just beginning to tackle the emerging Burmese python menace dismissed the turkey incident as isolated, likely the work of an escaped or illegally released pet.
But a recent string of finds nearby - all centered in the swampy southeast corner of Tamiami Trail and Krome Avenue - strongly suggests the rock python has settled in, said Robert Reed, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado, who is working with Krysko, Everglades National Park and other researchers on efforts to controlthe constrictors.
This past November, a snake expert nearly caught a 12-footer. In May, the Miami-Dade Fire Department's Antivenom Unit picked up a 9-foot female, carrying 37 unfertilized eggs, run over on Coral Way. In August, another expert caught a small hatchling near Tamiami Trail. Two weeks later, firefighters were again called to collect a 2-footer dispatched by a homeowner with a BB-gun.
That covers the whole life span - male, female, baby, juvenile - in less than a year.
"Since they're all in a small area, I don't need much more evidence of a population than that," Reed said.
Because wary, well-camouflaged pythons are so difficult to spot in the wild, the two scientists believe the snake species likely has already established itself and has probably slithered the short distance across Krome Avenue to join the estimatedtens of thousands of Burmese pythons now living in the nearby Everglades.
"What you see probably in no way represents what is out there," Reed said. "When you have three in a year, that rings warning bells."
In the wild, scientists believe, both species pose a threat primarily to native wildlife. Burmese pythons seem to grow a bit larger and tolerate cold better than their relatives from Africa. But both rank among the largest snakes in the world, sometimes topping 20 feet, and they're equally capable of preying on anything that lives in the Everglades - from birds to bobcats to alligators.
Both have been imported over the years, but the African python, while not exactly rare, is much less popular as a pet, said Daniel Parker, who owns Sunshine Serpents, a breeding and nature tour business in Highlands County.
"They're kind of nasty snakes," nervous and more apt to bite than Burmese, he said. Parker doubts their behavior in captivity would make them more of a threat to the public than Burmese pythons. "People have played up the danger to humans too much," he said.
Krysko believes otherwise, saying researchers have documented attacks in the snakes' home range. When humans encounter Burmese pythons in the wild, the big snakes tend to sit tight or, if provoked, attempt to flee. Not African rock pythons, he said.
"These things don't just remain motionless," he said. "It's got a really vicious temperament. It will readily strike at people."
Because the two species are known to mate in captivity, the discovery raises the possibility of interbreeding in the wild. Under a biological concept called "hybrid vigor," Reed said, that co-mingling of genes could produce yet another, hardier offshoot.
On the other hand, those offspring often are incapable of reproducing, so it's impossible to predict what effect such interbreeding might have, Reed and Krysko said.
But a sci-fi super snake seems unlikely, they said.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 09/27/2009