iStockphoto / Vrabelpeter1
Many people think the Green Anaconda is the largest snake in the world because it has such a formidable reputation. The anaconda was forever cemented in pop culture back in 1997 when Owen Wilson, Jon Voight, Ice Cube, and Jennifer Lopez starred in Anaconda, a film about a quest to capture the world’s largest snake.
‘Largest’ is the operative word here because the Green Anaconda found throughout Brazil and South America is the heaviest but Reticulated Python is often considered the ‘largest’ because it is the longest aaaaaaand then there’s the Burmese Python which is in the discussion as well.
The Burmese Python is the invasive species of snake that’s thriving throughout the Florida Everglades where the swampland is so dense experts find it nearly impossible to track these snakes unless they find them sunning themselves on warm cement roads, or send cameras into snake holes by attaching the cameras to turtles or rabbits.
The heaviest snake ever captured, according to Wiki, was a 500+ pound Green Anaconda caught sometime in the 1990’s. The second-largest snake ever captured was taken in 1998, a 403-pound Burmese Python was captured (in Burma) but a new record has been set in Florida for this species.
The Python Action Team is operated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission which also regulates fishing and hunting. They are just one moving arm of the effort to eradicate as many of these invasive snakes from Florida as possible before these snakes take over the Florida Everglades. They’ve just hit two milestones: (1) they’ve caught 900 pythons so far this year and (2) they set a new record for the largest python ever caught in Florida.
FWC shared a photograph of this record-snake, which I published here on BroBible last Friday but I had it tucked into the bottom of a different article about a 21-foot Burmese Python captured in Taiwan and only this morning did I realize I should’ve made these separate articles.
Their caption reads: “This huge 18’ 4” invasive python is the largest ever captured by our Python Action Team! Not only did we reach the impressive milestone of removing more than 900 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades, but Cynthia Downer and Jonathan Lopez brought in this 98 pound, 10 ounce snake from the Big Cypress National Preserve! This snake is the largest captured by our Team, and second longest python ever removed in the state. Find more through the link in our bio or google @MyFWC Facebook. Thanks to our Governor and partners! Governor DeSantis and South Florida Water Management District as well as the National Park Service.”
This program as a whole has removed over 2,500 invasive pythons this year including 400 in just the past three months, the Python Action Team alone have removed 900 of those 2,567 pythons this year.
This one was caught earlier in the Summer and measured 17-feet-9-inches. It is now the third largest captured in Florida with the one above the largest invasive python ever caught in the Sunshine State.
As a born and raised Floridian, I have to ask, what in the actual fuck is going on with this invasion? Don’t we already have enough dangerous creatures here between the ZIKA-carrying mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, spiders, alligators, and sharks? Do we reeeaaaaalllly need this super species of python just taking over the state and growing so heavy they weigh as much as an average 12-year-old boy?
I think it’s time I move to Iceland before my Bernese Mountain Dog gets swallowed by one of these rogue snakes.
For more on this snake invasion, you can click here to visit the Press Herald.