PALM BEACH POST (Florida) 11 October 05 Alligator's demise adds teeth to long, winding list of snake tales (John Pacenti)
The photo is a gory oddity right out of Ripley's Believe It or Not: a 13-foot Burmese python that swallowed a 6-foot American alligator, only to burst open because its eyes were a bit too big for its stomach.
The photo and accompanying stories of the epochal death match in the Everglades have been published and aired worldwide, stirring people's primeval fears and chatter among biologists who study the strange beasts.
"Monstrous fight in deadly swamp," a headline trumpeted in Australia. Days after the story broke, it continued to be one the top e-mailed stories from Florida newspaper Web sites.
On Monday, pythons and their kind appeared to have been on rampage in recent days: In Miami-Dade County, another python gobbled a pet Siamese cat; in Putnam County, a rattlesnake bit and killed a fire marshal despite being shot multiple times.
Across the Atlantic, London's The Daily Mirror breathlessly reported that a 12-foot "child killing" python was on the loose — spotted by a street sweep. Of course, it hadn't eaten Oliver Twist but animal experts acknowledged it was quite capable of it.
Fearful fascination with snakes spans not just the globe, but the ages. Almost every culture has integrated the reptiles into their lore or religion: Christianity has the tempestuous snake in the Garden of Eden, ancient Egypt's Cleopatra committed suicide with an asp, and Greek mythology had snake-coiffed Medusa. The python takes its name from a Greek mythical she-serpent born from primordial slime.
Some scientists believe the trepidation may have been hard-wired into our brains from the days when humans were prehistoric prey. Such feelings are stirred when we hear of a battle in the Everglades where a python and bull gator square off to be king of the swamp.
"What you are looking at is a battle of titans," said Walter Meshaka Jr., a herpetologist who writes about Florida's exotic reptiles.
"It's fascinating and exemplar of everything that is wrong with southern Florida where a once federally protected monster species like the American alligator battles another monster species that has invaded from another part of the world. It gives you a feel of primeval biology of large animals eating each other that's different than a hawk catching a mouse."
Burmese pythons — natives of Asia — took up residence in Florida's River of Grass after pet owners abandoned them, probably dismayed at how big they get in a short period of time. More than 150 have been removed from the Everglades; the number still out there is anybody's guess because they blend into the tropical scenery so well.
The carcasses of the alligator and python were spotted by helicopter pilot Michael Barron on Sept. 26, as he flew some researchers over the remote Shark River Slough. Photos show the large snake with a ruptured gut, the alligator's long tail and legs protruding from its underbelly.
Pythons are constrictors, suffocating their prey and then swallowing it whole. But if they eat something too large, they can suffocate themselves.
Barron's discovery quickly captivated the world. "I never thought it was going to get this big," he said.
The article was a top hit on The Palm Beach Post's Web site throughout last week, getting more than 15,000 page views. The python eating the cat was the Post's top Web story on Monday.
National Public Radio's Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me program featured Florida author Carl Hiaasen, known for spicing up his novels with anecdotes about poodle-eating gators and snakes. It seems that truth is even stranger than his fiction.
"Now it's turned out to be an epidemic," said Hiaasen, adding that such weird stories seem to attract people to Florida. "If you moved to Topeka, you're not going to have stories about pythons who are trying to eat alligators."
The Everglades bout has scientists scratching their heads: Was the alligator dead when the python swallowed it whole? If not, did the gator try to crawl its way out of the stomach? Did the python suffocate because of the gator's tough hide or its girth and then explode from internal gases as the two animals decomposed?
"It's a mystery," said Lori Oberhofer, an Everglades National Park wildlife technician. "The size of alligator was somewhat of a surprise."
The photo shows the python's head missing, leading some to speculate that the two beasts might have been posed by some creative poacher. Barron, though, said he found the jawbone and figures that other critters ate the serpent's noggin.
Snake experts said the photo depicted something unusual but not unbelievable. Others said it was odd for a python to go after a cold-blooded gator, as they prefer warm-blooded prey. Some speculate that a sunning alligator may be warm enough for the snake.
"Pythons are opportunistic. It's easy for them to sense warmth," said Keith Lovett, director of living collections at the Palm Beach Zoo at Dreher Park. "The movement of the alligator may attract the python's attention.... The fact that it took down an alligator is an impressive feat."
Some herpetologists couldn't believe that such an epic struggle actually occurred.
Bruce Dangerfield, director of the Treasure Coast Herpetological Society in Vero Beach, said he couldn't see the snake swallowing a snapping alligator.
"Most of the time, an alligator would win even with a snake 13 feet long. It would simply bite him in half," Dangerfield said. "It possibly could have been a dead alligator it swallowed."
Richard Bartlett, who has authored field guides to Florida snakes as well as books on pythons, said he believes a python could consume an alligator only to immediately regret it. "Alligators are notoriously difficult to kill. There could have been some reaction left in the animal," he said.
Bartlett said he is not surprised that the story has enraptured the snake-fearing world.
"I think anything that has to do with snakes is going to be popular," Bartlett said. "There is a lot of mysticism involved with snakes, especially with constrictors, and now the Everglades is fast becoming well-known for its population of Burmese pythons."
Alligator's demise adds teeth to long, winding list of snake tales