The largest Burmese python ever found in the Florida Everglades has been captured by scientists using another snake.
The massive 18-foot female weighed 215 pounds and was found with 122 developing eggs inside her, another record.
It was spotted by wildlife biologists from Southwest Florida Conservation, which tracks and studies Burmese pythons, an invasive species.
The team used radio transmitters transplanted into male “scout” snakes to study python movements, breeding behavior and habitat use.
“How do you find the needle in the haystack?” Asked the project manager, Jan Bartoszek, rhetorically.
“You can use a magnet and in a similar way our male scout snakes are attracted to the biggest females around.”
The team tracks the male python Dionysus, named after the Greek god of fertility, in the western Everglades.
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“We knew he was there for a reason and the team found him with the biggest woman we’ve ever seen,” Mr Bartoszek said.
“The elimination of female pythons plays a critical role in disrupting the breeding cycle of these top predators, which wreak havoc on the Everglades ecosystem and take food sources from other native species.
“It’s about the wildlife of our time for South Florida.”
Biologist Ian Easterling and intern Kyle Findley helped capture the female and take her through the woods to the field truck.
Since the conservation python program began in 2013, they have removed more than 1,000 pythons from approximately 100 square miles in southwest Florida.
Prior to the recent discovery, the largest female removed by the conservation organization’s program weighed 185 pounds and was the heaviest python caught at the time in Florida, officials said.
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