Biologists Hunt Invasive Pythons in Fla.

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2006/dec/17/121703614.html

"SNAKE!" Hearing this shout, Skip Snow slammed on the brakes. When the off-roader plowed to a halt, he and his partner, Lori Oberhofer, leaped out and took off running toward two snakes, actually - a pair of 10-foot Burmese pythons lying on a levee, sunning themselves.

After slipping, sliding and tumbling down a rocky embankment, Snow, a wildlife biologist, grabbed one of the creatures by the tail. The python, Oberhofer says, did not care much for that.

"It made a sound like Darth Vader breathing," she says, "and then its head swung around and I saw this white mouth flying through the air."

Snow saw the mouth, too - the jaws open 180 degrees, the gums an obscene white, the needle-sharp teeth bared in an almost devilish grin. He let out a shriek, then blinked, and when his eyes opened the python's head was hanging in mid-air, less than a foot from his own.

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[no_hypocrisy]

1. This reminds me of the plot of "Frogs" (1972 with Ray Milland).

[valerief]

3. Coolest movie! So bizarro. Must rent it again. nt

[William769]

2. This is no laughing matter. It's becoming a major problem.

People here buy exotic snakes then decide they don't want them and they wind up in the Everglades. Well guess what happens when boy snake meets girl snake? We have a population explosion here in the Everglades.

[valerief]

4. I think the bloom is off Florida's rose now. Time to move to higher ground. nt

[Sequoia]

5. Remember the walking snakes story from last year?

Some snakes native to Asian lands was brought here, owner didn't want them anymore so realeased them, the snakes made more snakes and so on. Big storm comes, floods, snakes everywhere, people put them in coolers to trap but snakes jump out and run away.