Python Week: How many wild critters does it take to grow a 13-foot python?

Amy Bennett Williams, Naples Daily News
Updated ·2 min read
2
Scientists estimate it takes this much wildlife to grow one 13-foot python in the Florida Everglades.
Scientists estimate it takes this much wildlife to grow one 13-foot python in the Florida Everglades.

The numbers are staggering: More than 90% of all mammals in Everglades National Park have disappeared down pythons' gullets, biologists say.

Rabbits and foxes? Completely wiped out, according to the United States Geological Survey, which recently published a comprehensive overview looking at how these invasive Asian reptiles have affected south Florida.

Small mammals have borne the brunt, but captured constrictors regularly turn up with digesting deer and the occasional house pet. "The most severe declines in native species have occurred in the remote southernmost regions of Everglades National Park, where pythons have been established the longest," according to the USGS. "In a 2012 study, populations of raccoons had dropped 99.3 percent, opossums 98.9 percent, and bobcats 87.5 percent since 1997."

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Is it any wonder the Florida panther, the area's other apex predator, is in trouble? Pythons are eating all their food.

In a hypothetical exercise that became a popular poster (in snake circles, at least) Everglades National Park herpetologist Skip Snow and University of Alabama biology Professor Stephen M. Secor estimate how much one of the snakes must eat to grow to be 13 feet long, which takes between five and seven years. It would eat ALL of the creatures below:

The cotton rat is one of the species devoured by Burmese pythons.
The cotton rat is one of the species devoured by Burmese pythons.

Rodents

10 squirrels, 30 cotton rats, 72 mice

Ibis are on the menu for Burmese pythons
Ibis are on the menu for Burmese pythons

Birds

5 American coots, 6 little blue herons, 8 ibises, 15 wrens

Burmese pythons have all but wiped out marsh rabbits from Florida's Everglades
Burmese pythons have all but wiped out marsh rabbits from Florida's Everglades

Lagomorphs

15 rabbits

Marsupials

1 opossum

Burmese pythons prey on raccoons.
Burmese pythons prey on raccoons.

Carnivores

1 raccoon

It doesn't matter to Burmese pythons that alligators are fellow reptiles - the snakes eat them too.
It doesn't matter to Burmese pythons that alligators are fellow reptiles - the snakes eat them too.

Reptiles

4 5-foot alligators

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: How many wild critters does it take to grow a 13-foot python?