Balmy, With a Chance of Pythons

Invading snakes blamed for drastic decline in mammal populations

(NEWSER) - The native mammals of the Florida Everglades have been all but wiped out by huge numbers of pythons and anacondas descended from released pets, a new study finds. After nearly a decade of night-time road surveys in the 1.5 million-acre national park, researchers found that raccoon and opossum sightings were down 99% from the '90s, the Washington Post reports. Bobcat sightings were down 88%, and not a single rabbit or fox was seen, dead or alive. More»

Snakes may face fate similar to that of frogs and fish

(NEWSER) - After more than 150 million years on earth, snakes may be slithering toward extinction. A new study shows snake populations plummeting around the world, with an especially sharp and mysterious drop in 1998. Researchers who tracked 17 snake populations in Africa, Europe, and Australia were "alarmed" to find 11 had declined markedly since 1998—some by up to 90%, BBC reports. More»

Florida hunts for new species of python

(NEWSER) - A state-coordinated hunt for a new invasive python population is under way in the Everglades, amid fears that Southern Florida could soon be home to a new “super snake.” The 3-day hunt launched Tuesday has so far nabbed at least five African rock pythons, one of them 14 feet long. Environmental officials fear that signals a full population of the snake out there, not a few wayward released pets, reports the Sun-Sentinel . More»

Said to have come from local canal

(NEWSER) - Residents of a South Florida town found a surprise visitor in their pool last night: an 8-foot alligator. Someone—nobody owned up—tied the creature to a tree with an extension cord before calling for help, the Miami Herald reports. When deputies arrived, a crowd of 30 was ogling the gator; police called a trapper to collect it. "It thought it was home," said a sheriff's office rep. "We live in the Everglades. The alligators were here long before us." More»

(NEWSER) - While the physical changes brought on by global warming—droughts, floods, and the like—are fairly easy to model, the effect on ecosystems is disconcertingly unpredictable, John Waldman writes in Yale Environment 360. Species will shift migration patterns and seek new homes, affecting other species in ways we can't imagine. Waldman fears so-called “global weirding” will be “a most apropos, if not downright tepid, label.” More»