Monster python caught in the Florida Everglades breaks egg record

BY CURTIS MORGAN
CMORGAN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Researchers examining a record-length Burmese python captured in Everglades National Park have uncovered an equally unsettling record hidden in its carcass.

The 17-foot, 7-inch snake, the largest ever caught in the wild in Florida, also was laden with 87 eggs.

The discovery, announced Monday by the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, is the latest confirmation that the giant exotic constrictors have rebounded since a brutal freeze two years ago that experts estimated may have killed off more than half of the population at the time.

“This thing is monstrous — it’s about a foot wide,” said Kenneth Krysko, manager of the museum’s herpetology collection, in a release. “It means these snakes are surviving a long time in the wild, there’s nothing stopping them and the native wildlife are in trouble.”

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