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Wes Comment: Photo at URL. This isn't really that dramatic of an article ... until You trip over the typo ... and You wonder how rumours get started?

DAILY TRIBUNE (Royal Oak, Michigan) 08 August 04 Pythons, gators and — armadillos (Catherine Kavanaugh)
Royal Oak: Few ophidiophobes were in the crowd at the Salter Community Center on Friday, when Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald from Animal Planet walked around with a 90-foot Burmese python for all to pet.
The snake's shiny white-and banana-yellow colored skin writhed under the fingertips of fearless children squealing with delight at the chance to see the reptile as well as an alligator, buzzard, armadillo and a loris, up close.
Before parading out the creatures shipped by truck from a New York zoo, Fitzgerald made everyone take the Animal Planet pledge. In unison, the children repeated after him: "I promise to be good to animals."
Fitzgerald said he likes to go on the road with critters of all kinds.
"The more information people have about animals, the less fear they will have of animals and the less harm they will cause animals," he said.
Fitzgerald is one of three veterinarians on the TV show "Emergency Vets," which is shot at his Denver, Colo., clinic.
The program highlights the dramatic life-and-death stories of pets dealing with injuries and illnesses.
With long salt-and-pepper hair, Fitzgerald looks like a classic rocker. His resume says he put himself through school doing security for The Who, The Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones. In 2002, he was named one of the 50 most eligible bachelors by People magazine.
The public will have a chance to meet Fitzgerald at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. Sunday during the Animal Planet Expo at Halmich Park, 13 Mile Road between Ryan and Dequindre, Warren. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the network has several events planned, including:
- Auditions for the series, "Pet Star," at 3 p.m. The show has featured rats that play basketball, birds that roller skate and a dog that surfs. To register, call 323-463-5040 or go to audition.
- Autograph sessions with the investigators from "Animal Cops: Detroit."
- Frisbee dog shows at 11 a.m., noon, 1 and 2 p.m.
The event is sponsored by Comcast Cable, which also is making a $2,500 donation to the Michigan Humane Society.
Pythons, gators and — armadillos

Hi folks,

well it says:

with a 90-foot Burmese python for all to pet

He didn't need to walk around with that, everybody could pet the python just by standing right at his place
What a huge predator What does he eat? Elephants or does he prefer cows like rats :-D

Cheers,
Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

The comment about what a snake of "90 feet" in length might eat reminded me of a couple of things I'd read in the past. While I no longer have the article, in the past I read a scientific paper that discussed an extremely small species of mammoth (I beleive they were the size of a very large dog) that had at one time lived on some Indonesian islands. A hypothesis raised in that paper was that as those islands lacked any large mammalian preditors, the reticulated pythons may have evolved to attain the size that they did in order to take on the role of the apex preditor and include those mammoths as prey.

Another time I was reading the classified section in the local paper and saw that someone was selling "feeder calves." While the term "feeder" certainly has a different meaning when referring to cattle than it does to those of us who keep snakes, I still had to laugh when I read it and the concept came to mind of having to buy calves to feed a pet snake.