I have argued the point on here before that I did not believe the burms in the glades were long term animals living there however Tom Crutchfield corrected me on that and given his vast experience and knowledge I will believe him. I have a tendency of disbelieving govt. officials about such things because the govt. has had a long and varied history of lying to us about many numerous issues. That said, there are some points to be made about the pythons that are here in comparison to some the other non-native species that are here, in particular green iguanas. Green Iguanas are a much more popular pet than burmese pythons but are every bit as much an unsuitable for the average person who buys them and they very often get turned loose here in Fl. Having kept both, lots of burms in the past as well as a group of Iguanas that I have maintained outside for many years in central fl. (Iguanas outside not the burms...outside temps here will kill them...which should kill the whole argument but it doesn't.) I can tell you from actual personal experience that adult iguanas are incredibly cold tolerant and much more so than burms. In fact just this last week we had a cold front here in central Fl. that dropped the night time temps to right around freezing. Due to the nature of this years winter weather I did not plastic up there cage this year and chose to move them inside when temps would get unsuitable for them (nighttime lows in 20'sand or daytime highs in 50's or low 60's.) other than that they have a small simple supplemental heating system in their nighttime sleeping area to keep them warm during some of the cooler nights. Anyway during this last front after weighing in the weather factors I chose not to bring them inside as I felt (from vast experience with this.) that although it would be a bit on the cool side they would be fine with the supplemental heat. To shorten this long story I discovered the next day that one of my dogs had unplugged their heating system the night before. So basically my iguanas withstood a night of temps in the low 30's and half a day of temps in the upper 50's without their heating system. They are doing just fine. Anybody with half a brain who has kept burms can tell you temps like this will kill them. Now back to the Iguanas. Iguanas have breeding populations in south Fl but you don't here of it much further north than maybe bradenton on the gulf coast(perhaps some isolated breeding pops in the tampa area.) and maybe as far north as sebastian on the east coast. I am aware of a possible breeding population in an area n.e. of lake okeechobee. But i can definitely tell you they have not established themselves in central fl. if they did trust me Orlando would be overrun with them especially the winter park area where temps are warmer than the rest of the city in winter and there is plenty of lush tropical american vegetation around to feed them. Of course one of the biggest reasons for this is that while adults can handle some rather low temps baby iguanas cannot. So basically the point of my long thread is that if burms are going to move so far north, how come iguanas which are more cold tolerant have not? There is also the humidity factor. Burms require lots of it and contrary to popular belief once you get away from the coast florida is not as humid as most people think. In fact I keep uromastyx lizards outside year round here and they do just fine although if we are going to get several days of rain in a row (very rare the last couple of years btw.) I will partially cover their cage with some plastic to keep some of the rain out but other than that they do great. however given what I have pointed out in this post based on actual working knowledge of keeping reptiles outside here in central fl. I don't think they will move much further north than they already are. Btw given my thing for building large outdoor cages I considered trying to experiment with the burms outside thing as well as doing nile monitors outside minus supplemental heat or plastic just to see if they could live (although with the burms I really already know the answer so it would just be total animal cruelty.) But given the invasiveness of the roc permits and my strong religious opposition to the (666)microchips I don't think I'll be the one doing those experiments.

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