billcoe Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Ha ha!, Have you seen some of the sizes of the Pythons in the Everglades? They should never have let those, and a bunch of other "pet" species into this country. Here's one that exploded trying to swallow an Alligator. Expect snakes up to 30 feet long eventually although 10-13 is the range now, and if it warms up a tad more, ranging up the eastern seaboard to New Jersey perhaps. A new entrant to the top of the food chain in Florida...like the birds nesting in the sawgrass needed this. Quote
RJRiha Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Expect snakes up to 30 feet long eventually although 10-13 is the range now, and if it warms up a tad more, ranging up the eastern seaboard to New Jersey perhaps. A new entrant to the top of the food chain in Florida...like the birds nesting in the sawgrass needed this. Up to 30 feet would be a world record size Burmese. They only get that big when they're captive at zoos and constantly fed a diet of pigs/goats, etc and kept WARM. In the wild, they have to hunt food, and don't grow to be the mammoths that they're capable of. They have been in the Everglades for over a decade now. Those snakes reach their adult size in 5-10 years. IF (and that's a big if) they start reaching their average maximum size, you'll see that average go up to 13-18 feet, depending on sex. They very well may never average larger than they are now though, due to lack of heat. The Everglades averages between 10-20 degrees lower at night than their natural habitat, and 10 degrees lower during the day. Heat is one of the determining factors for growth. Saying that they may reach Jersey is quite a stretch. They need a constant minimum temperature to avoid getting pneumonia (which almost always leads to death). The first freeze would kill every single one of them. The weather today in Atlanta would be enough to do it. They could evolve to withstand lower temperatures, but we won't see it in our lifetime. Besides the Everglades, there are few places in this country that would support large pythons (Hawaii being one of them). If the planet warms to the point that the Eastern seaboard becomes hospitable to Pythons, we have much bigger things to worry about. Quote
billcoe Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Thanks Malcolm, I pulled those numbers directly off the story. I should know better than to trust the internet. I suspect that everyone who has copied the pic has added a few feet to the potential length! Quote
G-spotter Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 OMG DID U HEAR THERE ARE GIANT ALLIGATORS IN THE SEWERS OF NEW YORK Quote
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