Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Long awaited study of winter mortality in the Glades:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/mj838265763h4w17/fulltext.pdf

I think this is about the third or fourth nail in the coffin for the "Pythons destroying the Everglades" argument.

Looks like their leaving the door open for the "March on Washington" argument, though. Could it be the Python Banner's last remaining hole card? Or maybe just job security with more grant money required for further study? Or both? Probably both.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Kathy,

Thank you very much...

OK, so why don't they just do the genetics study to answer some unanswered questions?

Man, I just love academic speak...

Later,
Jim.
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CSRAJim

Wow. 60% of the non-telemetered pythons were found alive. That's pretty impressive. And of the 40% that were found dead, not all had died from cold.

Fascinating stuff.

Fascinating maybe, but also statistically meaningless. Anyone with herpetological field experience will tell you that live reptiles are FAR more often found (except on roadways, for obvious reasons)than deceased specimens-in fact, finding a dead herptile of any kind is very rare. The reasons for this are varied, but most important is the plethora of scavengers waiting to take full and instantaneous advantage of any carcass. Add to this the fact that animals tend to take refuge before death and the fact that movement of some kind is most often the first clue a human uses to find a reptile. Finally, the reports from people in the field are that pythons have been, overall, almost vanishingly rare this season.

So actually that figure of 40% is a staggering number, and the 90% mortality figure we get from the telemetered snakes is almost certainly close to the truth.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

I imagine anything that dies in the Everglades is gone amazingly quickly.
So if they're FINDING 40% of the pythons dead, I'd think that would mean that there are a great many more that are actually dead.

I'm surprised that they even published the second percentage.
Telemetered snakes are easily tracked and accounted for. I'd deem that number significant.

I'd either have left the second number alone or explained Brad's point.
That, however, leads to speculation. The only thing you can say from there is that 40% is the bare minimum of pythons that died from the cold.

I just hope that this report is as widely publicized as the previous sensationalism...I mean "report" by the USGS.
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www.voodoomagicboas.com

If you take roadkill out of the equation, in my years(25 ) of fieldherping I would say that less than one tenth of a percent of the herps I have found have been dead.

I have found one headless gophersnake that appeared to have just been predated upon, I have found a few snake skeletons that appear to have been dropped by raptors and once i found the remains of a rattlesnake(cause of death unkown) on the edge of a rock outcrop. You just don't find that many dead herps in the wild.

My experience turtles are the most obvious. They leave a more lasting record (shell).
Dead aquatic turtles are buoyant and usually drift to shore. Most of them are either killed directly or indirectly by humans. As in the case of the headless hooked while fishing type accaisionally seen where people commonly bank fish using some form of animal matter as bait.
I have seen them floating dead from ingesting plastic, collisions with boat props, shot by gun or rifle, ingesting fishing tackle (hooks), as well as drowned in traps and/or nets.
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Well said Brad! A couple other notes/observations:

- No "young-of-the-year" pythons were found. I'm sure live juveniles would be hard to find, but this also could be because most died and were immediately and completely scavenged due to their small size.

- Even when given "thermal refugia", 7 of the 9 pythons in the Gainesville experiment died.

- Just because some were found alive, doesn't mean they were in good health. Unless I overlooked where it was discussed, imo this is a huge flaw in the paper. How many of the pythons found alive were terminally ill from an RI? None? Half? All? Isn't that relevant? And the paper cites the cold snap as being from Jan 2 to Jan 11, but also the search for (non-telemetered) pythons as starting on January 2. I don't think anyone
expects that the pythons died instantaneously once it got cold, so should pythons collected within a few days after the cold snap started really be counted? Also, the section on searching for the (non-telemetered) pythons is vague, particularly "we also solicited observations from colleagues and ENP staff." What does that mean? Was there a method used to differentiate the non-telemetered snakes? In other words, could one of the dead ones observed by "ENP staff" on February 1 been the the same snake that was found alive on Jan. 2? Or could some of the live ones been counted twice?

I agree, without an attempt to factor in a lot more information, the statistics on the non-telemetered snake are meaningless, and only makes the paper less credible.

Thanks,
Ed

the temperature got that low in the Everglades? Just curious....thanks!

The temps here about 2 miles from the ENP admission gate reached 31 degrees and 29 degrees the two days it froze albeit we had several days that reached into the middle to low 30's...thanks
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

I was referring to previous record low temperature: was it decades ago?

The last really cold year was Christmas of 1989 but it was of a much shorter duration. This very long cold spell lasted 14 continuous days with many of them overcast. The combination of the cold and duration is what really created havoc on ALL the wildlife here. Over a hundred American Crocodiles died including some giant oldtimers we loved. The croc that was alnost 14' long died in Flamingo and he was special to many of us here...I think I read where over 400 Mantee's died as a result of the cold. Here it was a sad time to see all the water ways covered in dead fish....
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

I bet.

According the sources I was able to reference, the previous record low was in the 1920's.

A very rare event.

It wasn't the lows that killed things off it was the lack of daytime highs. From a perspective of low temps what I had at my house was not the lowest temps I had seen for night time lows. what happened here and in the rest of florida was that the daytime highs did not bounce back to where they normally do.
BTW the same exact thing happened the previous winter it just did not last the duration that this last winters cold snap did. It did do signifigant damage to plants and animals. I'm running short on time but I could really get into this as I actually live here and I do not use mickey mouse thermometers from the land of the fairies to track the temps I have to deal with day in and day out nor do I live at the airport which for some reason always seems to be warmer in the winter than the surrounding area and cooler in the summer. I'm guessing those black helicopters prefer it that way.

You right on the daytime high and duration. Last winter went on and on and none of us new what would happen. some reptiles can recover from very low night temps. if there is just clear sky's and Sun the next day. It doesnt even have to get that hot as long as they can get on something dark or turn dark like an Iguana. I learned this from Mt.tortoise's that will sleep out in the open to awake in a pool of the mornings first Sun exposure and warm up quickly because of a dark shell. After a low of 32F there grazing in 45F four hours later. The cool part (no pun intended)is they know in advance were the "hot spot" will be! I'm sure other reptiles do this too, when given a huge area. Might explane why I still have Brown anoles and Cuban tree frogs here in N Fl. OOPS! I better shut up Rodda and Reed might be reading this! Never mind! Vic Morgan........pic caption "keep it hush-hush"

Chameleons are real good for figuring out where the sun is going to hit first thing in the morning and sleeping there. Which is pretty impressive considering in the grand scheme of things most species of chameleons are pretty stupid, they aren't on the level of tortoises or monitors for sure (parson's being a notable exception.).
I'm pretty rural where I'm at in Paisley so thankfully I don't have a problem with the cuban treefrogs with the exception of the occasional hitchhiker on a vehicle that gets quickly dispatched when found. As for the brown anoles here they almost got totally wiped out, I saw 2 of them during one of the little warm-ups amid that freeze and then I didn't see any until about the end of april. A small handful have surfaced but the greens absolutely outnumber the browns right now around my house which I obviously prefer.
It's kind of funny how some people come on here and make statements about the climate here in Fl. based on what they read on the internet and have no actual knowledge of what really goes on climate wise because they do not live here or have to deal with it the way you or I do and see first hand the effects of it.
As cold as paisley was this year I'll bet St. Augustine was even worse.

And the point? I don't believe anyone ever contested the fact that the most likely scenario was that the Burms were going to be a permanent fixture in the everglades. Permanent in short human time lines.

The major point of contention was if these animals could with stand the colder northern temperatures, expand their current range. The short cold snap experienced in the everglades this past winter, along with the high rate of mortality suffered by the glades animals certainly provided strong evidence that these animals would not fair well. What was a record cold winter for the glades would have been a record or near record warm winter over much of the range proposed by some "experts" as being suitable. A very strong case was made that even in regions experiencing mild winters with brief periods of sub 35% degree temps these animals would struggle to survive,

Ernie Eison
WESTWOOD ACRES REPTILE FARM INC.

If they were right Pythons would not be as big a problem as all the Mexican and south wertern REALLY DANGEROUS reptiles that would exspand their range northward! VM

You know your right if pythons are supposedly going to expand their range northward how come edb's and water mocassins and coral snakes and alligators have not? I know those are not western species but it seems all 4 of those species are much closer to maryland than burms.

Who cares when was the last time it got this cold.
The question is when will it happen again.
After 20 years living in Central TX last year we got down to 10 degrees. Six degrees colder than the 18 years previous.
And then this year we get down to 8.
Not only that for the last several years winter has been lastimg longer. The last few year we've had freezes in early April.
This year we hit 34 in May. Obviously this is TX not FL.
But the fact is it may not be 80-90 years before this happens again.D.C.

I agree with what's been said so far. Seems like with the frost sensitive plants, the longer they stay below freezing (critical temp) the more serious the damage and mortality.

With extended temps below freezing, as in several days without a significant daily warm up, the more the damage the more the mortality.

The longer it continuously remains below the critical temp, the more the cold works it's way into the body core, at some point in hours or days it's mortally cold.

Basically the same as hypothermia in Humans. Ectotherms handle it a bit differently and probably have a different point (time and temp) of critical mass.

jsc

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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE THREAD IS THAT THE PYTHONS WHILE ABLE TO EXIST HERE ARE NOT A THREAT TO THE ECOSYSTEM, HAVE NEVER BEEN A THREAT, AND THEY CAN EXIST NO FURTHER NORTH THAN THE EXTREME SOUTHERN TIP OF FLORIDA. THE FREEZE PROVED THAT THE USGS MAP ISN'T WORTH THE PRIC OF TOILET PAPER. EVERYONE HERE WITH THE EXCEPTION OF PERHAPS ONE PERSON KNEW THIS WHEN THE PAPER WAS RELEASED...
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Temperature trends are kind of important, especially when evaluating ranges survivability of species.

Would you tell a purchaser of any herp that temperature ranges don't matter?

"Temperature trends are kind of important, especially when evaluating ranges survivability of species."

You are right they are and the trend here in cent. fl. has been colder and colder for the last 2 winters. in fact I have an excellent windfall for you as a result of that trend. I have a star fruit tree in my yard that was once over 20 ft. tall. It is still alive but there is lots of dead wood on it I have not yet removed. I can send it to you and you can use it as fire wood to heat your box turtles this winter.

What lots of people on here are trying to tell you btw is that burms are not going to venture much further north than they have. South fl. is a whole different world to even central fl. climate wise. Having been a professional landscaper for many years it always amazes me when I go to south fl. what thrives down there for flora that will either barely grow here in a few select areas(strategic plantings.) or not grow here at all.

Of course I would but I also would tell them about other factors such as you can't set up a desert habitat for a Dendrobates Frog. That is but one "slight" error in the paper. I know, you dont get it but I don't care so it's O.K.....LOL
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Tom, my daughter say they have still not seen ANY iguanas in Greynolds park. This is from thousands last fall.

Of course they're important.
That's my point. And the last few years in the South the winters have been harsher and longer. Until that trend stops that is the trend I'm concerned with.
Did'nt I just explain this?
Why are you the only one that does'nt understand this? D.C.

Dude that is profound even for where you're at (which if I remember correctly is just northwest of San Antonio.). I know a few years back they got 6 to 8 inches of snow where I grew up (Alice.). It always got cold enough to snow there but the conditions were never right for snowfall to actually occur.
One of my childhood memories was one january morning when the temperature was 17f and I had a res in a wash tub and I had to smash through 3 inches of ice with a piece of 4x4 to get it out. much to my surprise it lived.
I also remember back around '83 they had a real bad cold snap that dropped temps down into the single digits at night and the low teens during the day. It came in very fast and killed a bunch of fish in Corpus Christi bay and wiped out all the washingtonia palms (those temps would have wiped out chinese windmill palms which are very cold tolerant for palms.). Maybe it's just me but I don't see burmese pythons surviving those type of temps but what do I know I'm not a scientist, I just have actual hands on experience with reptiles.

You remember correctly. It's crazy.
I feel more sorry for my trees than my electric bill. They don't know when to bloom.
Growing up in the early 70's in Houston(admittedly milder than Kerrville) March 1st marked the beginning of snake hunting.
Now you don't even see a RES until mid April.
The climate is changing and it is a little scary I've seen it in my own lifetime. D.C.

"Des wegen haben wir bucher."

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Brad and Ed,

I agree with what both of y'all said...

A couple of additional thoughts...

Almost nothing mentioned about SREL...

I have to laugh at academic speak..."refugia"?

I wonder how the report would have been written without public scrutiny? It is clear to me that what they wrote was reluctantly written...And I love how they continuously "recycle" the same old "peer reviewed reports" of old funded by the same old funding sources...There are other reports "out there" that are curiously omitted from the discussion...

Later,
Jim.
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CSRAJim

Jim,

Yes, I immediately noticed that two of the authors of this paper are two of the authors that published the infamous USGS range map, which was the garbage that started all the hysteria:

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1875

And the third author of the range map stuff (Rodda) was referenced a bunch of times in this latest paper. So I think
you are right on the money.

Here's my take on it, for what it's worth. Mother Nature threw these guys a wicked curveball with the cold snap, so now they are trying to do damage control without saying/doing anything that would cut off their funding. In other words, keep the "problem" alive.

A whole lot of tax money going towards what is really a non-issue, which was made into a gigantic "problem" by the bogus USGS range map in the first place!

And I was also wondering about no mention of the SREL study.

And yes, I love the jargon. "Refugia"? "Young-of-the-year?"
My wife is in the medical profession, so I'm used to it.
I started getting itchy arms a few years ago, and to find some information on it I had to look up "Brachioradial pruritus." Why can't they just say "itchy arms?"

Thanks,
Ed

The 13 that could "not be attributed to the cold", certainly could be if they were moving slower because they were sluggish from the cold.

Duh.

The Hines Brothers never tap-danced so well.

So, this 'worthless' paper 'proves' that the pythons can't survive north of the Everglades. Either it's worthless or it's proof, no?

>>So, this 'worthless' paper 'proves' that the pythons can't survive north of the Everglades. Either it's worthless or it's proof, no?

Completely illogical. It's not up to anyone to disprove a wild hypothesis that flies in the face of decades of herpetoculture and common sense. It's up to the government scientists to prove beyond a reasonable doubt their theories on which any, much less draconian, laws will be based, laws that prevent citizens' pursuit of happiness. I'm starting to think you are actually on our side, Steph. It's like you are satirizing the AR agenda and government stupidity, and prompting responses that show how stupid those things are. Thanks!!

I'm mainly remarking on the reactions that have been posted here.

One person seems to hold this paper up as some kind of proof, another knocks the paper's worthless statistics.

If you say it a third time, maybe someone will comment on it. Sorta like Beatlejuice. A paper can certainly be "worthless", but prove something....like the authors had no clue, or an agenda.

We all know on this board what an "agenda" is, don't we? I'm not one of those to endlessly debate minutia. As I said in another thread, there are far more important things to do in life.

Some of us on here, believe it or not, actually live in Florida. I know this is harder to believe, but some of us who live here in fl. may have actual experience with (gasp) burmese pythons and other large reptiles that extends beyond what we read in a textbook or some paper somewhere. We do not need a paper or some scientist with no practical experience actually working with these animals to tell us that they will die when it gets too cold for them which is a fact I have been aware of since I was 4.
Most of us who live here in Fl. who have actually worked with such animals also know that the climate between cnt. and south fl. are 2 different worlds and north florida is even more different and that someone who thinks a burmese python might be able to live in the wilds of maryland (maybe the blair witch will cast a spell on them.) is just ridiculous.

"One person seems to hold this paper up as some kind of proof, another knocks the paper's worthless statistics."

There you go again, fabricating a pretext for your position.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Certainly they are but both are saying the same thing. They're saying the paper isn't worth toilet paper but in different ways of expressing themselves. There's goes that reading comprehension again. Why does a Box Turtle cross the road? Is it for the same reason a chicken does?...LOL
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Some may have said the cited references were worthless, but I didn't hear anyone question the data.

There weren't any conclusions drawn, that I could tell. Other than the fact that the ENP is not a suitable Python habitat long term, as it does not provide a certain required refugia.

Just more questions asked. More grant money and job security?

What's so difficult to understand about that?

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

You are absolutely so good at concocting a pretext for your own arguments with a scenario created by you. Must be all that Lawyerin'.

I call that - putting words in people's mouths and leading the witness, or is it - question asked and answered?

Believe you refer to it as obfuscation and others have mentioned straw man arguments.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

>>The Hines Brothers never tap-danced so well.

I found this to be particularly amusing:

"The native range of Burmese pythons includes regions with
winter lows that regularly drop below freezing (Zhao
and Adler 1993; Schleich and Ka¨stle 2002), indicating
that populations of this species can persist in
areas cooler than south Florida. However, most
Burmese pythons in the international live animal
trade are sourced from Southeast Asia (Groombridge
and Luxmoore 1991). If pythons from tropical areas
exhibit reduced tolerance to cold as opposed to more
temperate populations, and if Florida pythons are
sourced only from tropical areas, then the Florida
population may have a limited ability to spread
northward (Rodda et al. 2009)."

Huh?? Didn't they state (second sentence) that most imported pythons were sourced from tropical areas? And didn't the study itself show that the pythons have "reduced tolerance to cold"????

I kinda think they are including the Indian subspecies into some of their data in this regard, then omitting that detail, when it suits them.

True or not true?

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

>>I kinda think they are including the Indian subspecies into some of their data in this regard, then omitting that detail, when it suits them.
>>
>>True or not true?

Burmese pythons do occur in parts of northeastern India, Nepal and southern central China that experience frosts in winter, at least periodically.

It would certainly be important to know whether those populations differ from the source populations of the FL pythons in their adaptation to colder climates (either behaviour of physiology). That certainly affects the extent to which niche modelling can predict likely future distributions.
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WW Home

That is what the report stated. Thanks for confirming that. Do you happen to know where to find a document? Didn't see one listed on your site.
Isn't it believed the Burms in the ENP were imported from Viet Nam for the most part?
Differences in physiology between the two locals would indeed be an interesting topic. Likely a subspecific difference at least.
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Nepal and Northeast India would be the Indian subspecies - Python molurus molurus. Intergrade populations at best.

Here is what I gleaned in a few minutes from the Rodda report...the pretext for the "Invasion" theory. Some ambiguous and rather disingenuous reporting...bait and switch.

LINK

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

If the Burmese Python/Python molurus bivittatus is a questionable/invalid subspecies, then the colloquial terminology Burmese Python would be equally invalid.

In that case, they should more correctly refer to them as Indian Pythons [in the news and media], after the nominate race of Python molurus molurus.

Then again, if they choose the colloquial moniker based on country of origin, perhaps Vietnamese Python would be more accurate, or at least Southeast Asian Python, as I doubt any have come from Myanmar (Burma).

There is of course the school of thought that the Burmese Python/Python molurus bivittatus is a fully valid species in it's own right. Would that then be Python bivittatus bivittatus?

In that case the Rodda pretext would be invalid to an even greater degree.

Confused yet? All part of that bait and switch shell game of "political science". I've just coined a new definition of the term. lol

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

John, Rodda's whole report only has merit (ok, sorta) if he lumps Indians with Burms. If they are separate species/subspecies, he can't prove squat. Tap dancing, indeed.

This ain't Guam.

Burmese pythons have been reclassified as Python bivittatus bivittatus . They are now a distinct species from the Indian python, Python molurus . Jacobs, H.J., M. Auliya & W. Böhme. 2009. Zur Taxonomie des Dunklen Tigerpythons, Python molurus bivittatus Kuhl, 1820, speziell der Population von Sulawesi. Sauria, 31(3): 5-16.

Taxonomy like " niche modeling "is .............................well, we all know.

Scientist in both of these fields are constantly grasping at straws in attempts to justify their work. For biologist and law makers Taxonomy has proven to be a very useful tool . Adding to the pick and choose elements of their approach......

There has NEVER been a Burmese python imported from any these fragmented and very poorly studied higher elevation, cooler climate, blah bllah blah populations. The inclusion of these localities in any type of study dealing with the US population in South Florida, provides another means of pick and choose data to be used to skew the final result.

ERNIE EISON
WESTWOOD ACRES REPTILE FARM INC.

Yes, well I know the Academics, the professors and their graduate students are continuously revising the taxonomy and defining new subspecies, as a normal part of their work producing "scientific" papers and earning post graduate degrees.
maybe one of them can help me write up the description of my discovery.
jsc

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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Very nice John, I think I might do a complete overhaul on the
Trachemys complex. I'll carefully use DNA sampling to my advantage etc.Get a few other people to pitch in, Then Ill submit my findings to an online journal for rapid peer review. I cant say to much before my findings are published (I don't want to get misquoted by the press and cause a public up roar) but I do plan on elevating Crickmer to a full species.
This topic is fun Internet banter but with so many places to hide, revealing the truth becomes an impossibility. Exhibit A,

"On the other hand, if these northern populations have been isolated for a long time, there is a greater likelihood that they will have acquired their own behavioral and/or physiological adaptations, and they may thus be less representative of the Florida pythons."

Oh yes the game.........Isolated for a long time. And how long is along time 100 years, a million years? Is there a "generally speaking time frame."

Like many of the key questions surrounding this giant non issue. The scientist who champion "only the facts matter" keep going back to the use of non facts to validate their position. Its all guessing, not facts. A greater likelihood?................Yeah exactly.

ERNIE EISON
WESTWOOD ACRES REPTILE FARM INC.

Well Ernie, I do know that the literature (all scientific literature) cites innumerable previous writings/authors as a matter of standard operating procedure and it does become a bit hard to flush out the validity and relevance of all those citations as they apply to the work at hand.
jsc

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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

quote ""On the other hand, if these northern populations have been isolated for a long time, there is a greater likelihood that they will have acquired their own behavioral and/or physiological adaptations, and they may thus be less representative of the Florida pythons."endquote

In reality, it depends on a number of factors.. some species of animals have been shown to show significant changes in one generation (virtually all mass reared fish for example) including some that resulted in the animals effectively becoming phenotypically a different species as the changes were significant enough to prevent them from surviving in thier original niche (pupfish) while others do not show much deviation even after multiple generations... It really depends on how much enviromental and phenotypic plasticity are within the population in question.

Ed

np

>>Nepal and Northeast India would be the Indian subspecies - Python molurus molurus. Intergrade populations at best.

No, there are what appear to be genuine Burmese python populations in Nepal and northern India, apparently extending as far west as Corbett National Park, in the Himalayan foothils just west of the western tip of Nepal - see Barker & Barker's paper, linked to below. That part of India can certainly get cold snaps in winter - you sometimes hear of cold spells (similar to what we have just seen in the southeastern US) there that kill large numbers of people.

We don't know to what extent these populations are differentiated either genetically or physiologically or behaviourallly - that would an important thing to find out. While the ancestors of the Florida pythons are almost certainly from tropical Asia, that may not matter if the northern populations are the result of a recent range expansion by a genetically homogenous snake species with wide tolerances. On the other hand, if these northern populations have been isolated for a long time, there is a greater likelihood that they will have acquired their own behavioural and/or physiological adaptations, and they may thus be less representative of the Florida pythons. I have no idea if any of this work has been done yet.
Barker & Barker - Burmese python distribution

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WW Home

Thanks. Very interesting.
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Thanks for the link. I read it. So much more needs to be done in order to get a better understanding of the distribution and the differences between localities.
I seems to me as if the range has expanded and contracted over time and that certain populations have adapted to some degree to their environment.
If those differences could be identified it would add much to the understanding of this species.
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Ed,

Right on! Right on!

Later,
jim.
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CSRAJim

Living here at ground zero I can tell you that the Pythons have all but dissapeared after the freeze. Personally after searching many times I've only found one live one and that was a week after the freeze. That one died a week later due to a RI infection. All the hunters I've spoke to are very seldom seeing a Python nowdays. Most Pythons being found now are small ones and those of course can hide underground easier. There is NO question that some Pythons survived but also there is no question a very high percentage were killed...Thanks
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

How about the iguanas? My folks in Ft. Lauderdale tell me they finally saw a couple last week.

Iguanas still survived but I'm guessing at least 90% ARE GONE...Mortality was very high on them possibly the same as Pythons. It's just that Pythons are more difficult to access the numbers....thanks
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

It would be nice to be able to ask him directly.

>>Excellent point, Brad. In an otherwise well-crafted paper, I wish the authors have been more upfront with that very important fact. As written right now, certain people with hidden agendas -- politicians, animal rights -- will quote only the second survival number, completely ignoring the (far more meaningful) 90% data.
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Cliff,

I think you are being to easy on the authors.

Call me cynical, but I don't believe the authors of the paper are that dumb to have included the "non-telemetered" snakes (and the associated half-ass data) out of incompetence... especially after all the big talk about making sure the data was in order and "peer reviewed." They put it in there for a reason, imo.

And again, if this is an example of what can get through "peer review", then the "peer review" process is broken.

Thanks,
Ed