Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
Speaker 1: There's Chuck, and this is Stuff you should Know about pythons.
Speaker 1: Take it, Chuck, You mean take my two pythons to
Speaker 1: the vet because I have two sick pythons. Do you
Speaker 1: have two sick pythons? You never heard that joke? No,
Speaker 1: but muscles? No, let's here. Well, I mean that's just
Speaker 1: kind of it. It's just a not just way to
Speaker 1: say you have big biceps, so you like, I need
Speaker 1: a vet because I've got two sick pythons. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I've never heard anything like that. I don't think that
Speaker 1: joke even made it into The Hangover. It's like two
Speaker 1: tickets to the gun show. Yeah, I've heard that one.
Speaker 1: You haven't heard two sick pythons. No, no, No, that's terrible.
Speaker 1: I think it was in The Hangover too. Oh I
Speaker 1: never saw that one. It was not good. Was the
Speaker 1: first one good? Yeah? It was. In fact, I just
Speaker 1: watched some of that recently on a plane flight because
Speaker 1: I just needed some comfort food and that movie was
Speaker 1: really really funny. No, yeah, did you see it? Yeah? Oh, dude,
Speaker 1: Zach Alifanakos was great. Ed Helms was great. Ken Uh,
Speaker 1: what's his name? Ken Burns was awesome. No, main guy Ken,
Speaker 1: the guy who's the doctor in real life, the Asian actor.
Speaker 1: Oh Ken Jung, yeah Jung. He was hysterical. Yeah, he's funny. Okay,
Speaker 1: Mike Tyson so funny. Tyson was funny that you know.
Speaker 1: Actually he wasn't that good in it? Now, never mind,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna talk about that. Okay, correction wrong. I'll
Speaker 1: let everyone guess who I didn't think was good out
Speaker 1: of all the remaining characters. Oh, man, you're so hard
Speaker 1: on that guy. Why what did you don't even know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? I do too, of course I
Speaker 1: know who you're talking about. Should we talk about pythons?
Speaker 1: I think we should, And we're not talking about the muscles,
Speaker 1: as the joke everybody knows goes. No. Instead, we're talking
Speaker 1: about snakes, realize, snakes that will mess you up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not so scared of pythons, no, uh, largely because
Speaker 1: I'm never around them. But there's something my snake fear.
Speaker 1: And I don't have that much of a snake fear,
Speaker 1: but uh, my snake fears around having bangs of a
Speaker 1: snake enter my body. But pythons are you know, they
Speaker 1: have been known to kill people every once a while.
Speaker 1: But from what I read, get this, chuck every single
Speaker 1: person that's ever been killed in the United States by
Speaker 1: a python, and take that with a grain of salt,
Speaker 1: because they're not native to the United States. Um was
Speaker 1: a cap was was it killed by their own by
Speaker 1: a captive python? Usually it was their pet, and they
Speaker 1: messed up by not fall following the proper procedures for
Speaker 1: feeding it right, or they like went to sleep with
Speaker 1: it wrapped around their neck yau they thought it was comforting,
Speaker 1: or sadly they didn't keep their snake in an enclosure
Speaker 1: like you're supposed to, and the python got ahold of
Speaker 1: a kid in the house. That is, I can't I
Speaker 1: can't even like put my mind there. Nightmare. But we
Speaker 1: don't want to give python's bad name because UM in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases there are definitely um plenty of
Speaker 1: them that are pretty docile, nice friendly UM and UM
Speaker 1: if they if a python does try to eat you,
Speaker 1: it's probably a case of mistaken identity to begin with.
Speaker 1: But also there's differences, UM that that make pythons seem
Speaker 1: less threatening. They moved just like one mile an hour.
Speaker 1: They're very slow. Um, they're not venomous. That's another big one, right, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know, Andy, I'm scared of any venomous steak,
Speaker 1: like really scared of any venomous snake, not like a
Speaker 1: phobia or anything. I think that's just like a legitimate fear,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. They're found in Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Speaker 1: They are Old World snakes and there are forty one
Speaker 1: species of python. Um, we're going to concentrate on just
Speaker 1: a few of these, but these are you know, they
Speaker 1: along with the anaconda, which um, maybe we should do
Speaker 1: like a shorty on anaconis at some point. But these
Speaker 1: are these are the big daddies that are just amazing.
Speaker 1: You can you can see a python that's twenty to
Speaker 1: thirty ft long, and to see a snake that big
Speaker 1: and that heavy, it's just it's it looks like a
Speaker 1: holdover from ancient times. Yeah. Um, there are very small
Speaker 1: pythons too, though. It turns out there's one called the
Speaker 1: antil python. It's only about two feet long and it's
Speaker 1: adult size. Um. But for the most part, if you're
Speaker 1: talking about pythons. One of the ways to I think
Speaker 1: this is probably one of the reasons why they do
Speaker 1: seem so impressive too. They're bulk two length ratio is substantial,
Speaker 1: which means they're like pretty big around. Even though they're
Speaker 1: really long, they're also really big around. Um. So when
Speaker 1: you see a snake like that, like, it definitely stands
Speaker 1: out in your mind. Yeah. And even among big ones,
Speaker 1: there's not the same um, the same color pattern or
Speaker 1: anything there. They can really really differ depending on where
Speaker 1: they are and what they need to camouflage themselves. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you see those really pretty pattern scales that look almost
Speaker 1: like a copper head in some ways. Uh. Sometimes they're
Speaker 1: solid though. You've seen those big, gigantic bright green ones
Speaker 1: or brown ones that are solid brown. Yeah, yeah, really
Speaker 1: good looking snakes. Yeah, that's the green tree python, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. One thing I found, Chuck that I
Speaker 1: found totally fascinating is um. A lot of python species
Speaker 1: eat warm blooded um pray. Right. Yes, So they've developed
Speaker 1: what are called labial pits, which are these little heat
Speaker 1: sensing organs in their face around their mouth. Um, and
Speaker 1: it allows them to sense uh. It's basically like the
Speaker 1: predator remember UM, they would switch to what looked like
Speaker 1: like thermal imaging. That's what those labial pits pick up.
Speaker 1: But these UM snakes still also see visible light too,
Speaker 1: so they use their eyes, but that the labial pit
Speaker 1: information is transferred up their trigeminal nerve through their face
Speaker 1: and eventually hits like their optics the optics center in
Speaker 1: their brain. So and this is really tough to wrap
Speaker 1: your head around. UM, but the the thermal imaging from
Speaker 1: the labial pits and the visible information from their eyes
Speaker 1: is superimposed so that they see in a way that
Speaker 1: UM at this one site put It's impossible for us
Speaker 1: to imagine. Isn't that awesome unless you've seen the movie Predator?
Speaker 1: And that the um labial pits are so sensitive they
Speaker 1: can detect changes in temperature of as little as point
Speaker 1: zero zero one degree celsius. It's amazing, I think so too.
Speaker 1: Good luck if you're a rabbit, I know you don't
Speaker 1: stay in a chance. Sadly, no none, because if you
Speaker 1: do get a python around a rabbit, they will grab
Speaker 1: ahold of it with its triangular shaped head and they
Speaker 1: have these sharp backward curving teeth. If you ever looked
Speaker 1: at a Um, if you just look up pictures of
Speaker 1: python teeth, they have a lot of sharp fangs that
Speaker 1: are kind of pointing in the backwards direction. They don't
Speaker 1: because they're not venomous. They don't have those two giant,
Speaker 1: big daddy venom injectors at the front, which those are
Speaker 1: the things that really scare me when it comes to snakes.
Speaker 1: So pythons don't have those, but uh, they do, some
Speaker 1: of them. Arboreal pythons have these prehensible tails that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there are legends of pythons like leaping from
Speaker 1: trees to kill people or kill prey. That is not
Speaker 1: true because that would hurt the snake to eat from
Speaker 1: a tree. But they said in the articles I read,
Speaker 1: they're like, well, they don't do that, but so don't worry.
Speaker 1: But but they can really hang from the tree and
Speaker 1: then come down and grab you. Right. They're famous for
Speaker 1: wearing a hat and swinging down in front of your
Speaker 1: face and going hello yeah. Basically, um, So there's some
Speaker 1: other things about pythons that um stand out even amongst snakes.
Speaker 1: One of the things that they have that most snakes
Speaker 1: don't is two lungs, which is weird because it makes
Speaker 1: them primitive. Then that seems odd we have two long
Speaker 1: as we'd think, well, it's evolving towards humanity. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's that's not primitive, that's the opposite. But apparently, um,
Speaker 1: all snakes, or at least pythons I should say, evolved
Speaker 1: from four legged, uh two long vertebrates of some sort
Speaker 1: in the great distant past, and they just haven't evolved
Speaker 1: into just a single lung like plenty of other snake
Speaker 1: families have. That's right. And because of that evolution, they
Speaker 1: all so have remnants of that stuff. They have remnants
Speaker 1: of a pelvis and these little hind limbs and they're
Speaker 1: called spurs located on the back, on the sides beside
Speaker 1: the cloaca, and they use those for a bunch of
Speaker 1: different things. But one of the things they do, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more about mating, they'll kind
Speaker 1: of kind of stroke the ladies with the what's what's
Speaker 1: left over of their vestigial limbs? I like that? Does
Speaker 1: that creep you out? Yes? It does? It seems very sweet. So, um,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to find a python in the wild, chuck,
Speaker 1: where would you go? Well, already said Asia, Africa and Australia.
Speaker 1: But what parts of those continents you would go to
Speaker 1: where it's warm and wet. You would go maybe to
Speaker 1: a rainforest, maybe in the woodlands or grasslands or the swamps.
Speaker 1: They like to hide in under rocks and things. They
Speaker 1: like to hide in little animal burrows. Like I said,
Speaker 1: they can't hang from tree branches. Uh, this should scare everyone,
Speaker 1: and we'll get a little bit more into how they've
Speaker 1: made their way to Florida in the United States. But
Speaker 1: when they are found in urban areas, they shelter in
Speaker 1: urban debris. So you could, uh, you could pick up
Speaker 1: a spare tire or turn over a wheelbarrow and find
Speaker 1: a python into there. And if you were in the
Speaker 1: in the wrong place at the wrong time, somewhere in
Speaker 1: Florida right in the inner cities are littered with overturned wheelbarrows,
Speaker 1: well you never know. So remember I said that python's
Speaker 1: moved about one mile an hour. There's a reason for this.
Speaker 1: That's really slow, just if you stop and think about it.
Speaker 1: The reason they are so slow is because they're using
Speaker 1: a form of movement called rectilinear progression um, which is
Speaker 1: where they brace themselves on the ground with their ribs
Speaker 1: and then lift their body up a little bit in
Speaker 1: front and then push themselves forward and then just keep
Speaker 1: repeating this. It's just kind of like, um uh, like
Speaker 1: herky jerky moving forward in a herky jerky motion. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was looking at python movement and it looked like
Speaker 1: a slither to me. It didn't stand out as much
Speaker 1: as I thought it. What is looking really different? I
Speaker 1: guess I should say, well, that's how they fool you. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess so. I mean, they were definitely slow, but
Speaker 1: I think I expected a lot more of a straight line,
Speaker 1: and they do go in a straight line like as
Speaker 1: opposed to like a really big S shaped slither. But
Speaker 1: there was still some slither to their diather, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Sure, I mean they are snakes after all.
Speaker 1: To um they're also like frequently you can find them
Speaker 1: in water. Apparently pythons can stay submerged in water for
Speaker 1: up to half an hour. And one of the ways
Speaker 1: that they they hunt is by basically hanging out in
Speaker 1: water and waiting for something to come over to get
Speaker 1: a little drinking and copal. And they're a will to
Speaker 1: do this because they're um. Their their skin tones really
Speaker 1: camouflaged well with like muddy mucky bottom. So it's really
Speaker 1: tough to see a python, especially a Burmese python. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of alligators similarity. Uh, it's interesting
Speaker 1: when I was studying this stuff. Hey, yeah, that hadn't
Speaker 1: stuck out to me. But absolutely you're right, including how
Speaker 1: to get away from him, which we'll get to, um,
Speaker 1: But maybe we should take a break and we'll come
Speaker 1: back and talk a little bit about uh they're hunting
Speaker 1: and feeding and more detail right after this. Y yea,
Speaker 1: so chok, we're talking about their hunting and feeding habits
Speaker 1: and um. Like I said, they they sometimes hang out
Speaker 1: underwater waiting for something to come up. They might also
Speaker 1: just be hanging out on a tree branch. They might
Speaker 1: just be hanging out under some brush. But what they're
Speaker 1: doing every time they're hanging out is um performing the
Speaker 1: type of hunting they do, which is ambush. They just
Speaker 1: wait around for some prey to come and then come bout.
Speaker 1: They get your alligators. Yeah, it is, it's like alligators.
Speaker 1: You're right, man, Um, Please stop proving your point now.
Speaker 1: But that's what they do. They ambush hunt, they bite,
Speaker 1: and then they constrict bite and constrict back into the left.
Speaker 1: That's right. If you're a little python, like the little
Speaker 1: guys that are two or three ft long, you're gonna
Speaker 1: eat mice and rats and things like that. Uh, lizards,
Speaker 1: Maybe some birds might get in there if they're not
Speaker 1: paying attention. If they're bigger, you name it man um, pigs, antelope, monkeys.
Speaker 1: I think they found a rock python that had a
Speaker 1: leopard in its stomach, A small leopard. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: that's terrifying. That leopard doesn't win that battle. Well, So
Speaker 1: that's something that pythons are known for, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about it in a second. But they are capable
Speaker 1: of eating things that are even bigger than they are,
Speaker 1: which doesn't make sense even for snakes, Like that's really crazy.
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff that they've eaten. Um. I saw
Speaker 1: a picture, it's a really sad, terrible picture of a
Speaker 1: python that tried to eat an alligator and it was
Speaker 1: too big, and the python actually burst into in half
Speaker 1: and the alligator was spilled out. But they are willing
Speaker 1: to eat really large things because their body actually changes
Speaker 1: to accommodate this huge um load of food that they've
Speaker 1: just now taken on. It's got too big for a
Speaker 1: stomach exactly, and now the body's like, now I gotta
Speaker 1: change in adjust because this guy doesn't know his own size.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned constriction. They are constrictors, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how what they have in common
Speaker 1: with BoA's a little bit later. But I think for many,
Speaker 1: many years they thought that, um, well, they thought a
Speaker 1: few things. Constriction. At first they thought was like they
Speaker 1: were crushing their prey and like breaking their bones. That's
Speaker 1: not true. Uh. Then for a while they thought that
Speaker 1: they suffocated their prey and just like tightened up on
Speaker 1: the lung so much that you can't breathe. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: All of this sort of makes sense. But in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, uh, there was a scientific paper that came
Speaker 1: out that basically said, hey, with boa constrictors, we now
Speaker 1: know that what they do is they they don't suffocate you.
Speaker 1: What they do is they cut off your brain or
Speaker 1: your blood circulation basically, so you don't get any blood
Speaker 1: to your brain and that's how you die. So it
Speaker 1: may be true for pythons as well, because they are
Speaker 1: also constrictors. Obviously, yeah, it would make a lot of sense. Um,
Speaker 1: And that actually makes even more sense than than preventing
Speaker 1: you from breathing, because you would lose consciousness much faster
Speaker 1: if they can cut off the blood supply to your brain,
Speaker 1: which is what you want to happen, because when they
Speaker 1: when they capture you by biting your head like you're
Speaker 1: eating head first by a python, you would probably hope,
Speaker 1: no matter whether you're a person or a buddy, that
Speaker 1: you have lost consciousness by the time it starts to
Speaker 1: swallow you head first. Yeah. I saw a video of
Speaker 1: someone feeding a dead bunny to this python on a
Speaker 1: porch and it was, you know, it's just it was
Speaker 1: it's just not fun to watch. I mean's super interesting,
Speaker 1: but uh and again it wasn't a lie bunny. But
Speaker 1: you know, when you when you see an animal consuming,
Speaker 1: like unhinging that jaw and working this bunny's body into
Speaker 1: its mouth, it's just it's amazing in a nature sense.
Speaker 1: But I didn't watch at all, let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: I don't blame you, so, Chuck, I think we should
Speaker 1: talk about the studies of trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: pythons can eat things that are so much bigger than it,
Speaker 1: or just so enormous to begin with, not necessarily even
Speaker 1: bigger than the snake, but way bigger than anything you
Speaker 1: or I could eat proportionately, right, that's right. And they've
Speaker 1: figured out thanks to um genetic sequencing, they see they
Speaker 1: sequence the genome of the Burmese python um and found
Speaker 1: out that it's actually their genes changed. The way that
Speaker 1: their genes express um things like proteins or affect their metabolism.
Speaker 1: All this stuff actually changes when they eat, and it
Speaker 1: happens really fast, and the changes that it creates are
Speaker 1: really really dramatic. Yeah, I mean the fact that this
Speaker 1: was naturally selected over I mean they think that happenedically
Speaker 1: as well, right, yeah, yeah, like the that during its
Speaker 1: evolution it started picking up these these positive adaptations like
Speaker 1: really fast. And the main thing they found out that
Speaker 1: it was allows pythons to eat things that are as
Speaker 1: big as they are is their their organs shrink when
Speaker 1: they're eating to to make room in there, like their
Speaker 1: liver and their kidneys and their intestines. They act in
Speaker 1: their heart even get smaller while they're eating these things
Speaker 1: to create space. And after like some of these things,
Speaker 1: I think the liver actually doubles in mass in the
Speaker 1: two days after they're done eating. Yeah, their heart actually
Speaker 1: increases in size by about in the two days after
Speaker 1: they eat, which is like that that is very unusual,
Speaker 1: but it actually has to happen because the metabolism that's
Speaker 1: required to eat this huge thing, because we didn't I
Speaker 1: don't know if we said, like they'll go like a
Speaker 1: week without eating, they'll eat once a week. So the
Speaker 1: rest of the time they're their metabolism is just going
Speaker 1: along doing whatever. Then all of a sudden it's presented
Speaker 1: with this huge piece of food that it needs to digest.
Speaker 1: So it's a huge increase in metabolic demand, and the
Speaker 1: heart actually increases in size to accommodate that increase in
Speaker 1: metabolic demand. It's amazing, it really is. And they figured
Speaker 1: out that it's their genes just become super active and
Speaker 1: start producing way more proteins and um just doing all
Speaker 1: this stuff that under normal circumstances when they're not digesting
Speaker 1: food just doesn't. It's just not how their genes behave.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering how they're breathing with a rabbit
Speaker 1: stuff down their throats, they have a windpipe that opens
Speaker 1: at the front of the mouth so they can breathe
Speaker 1: while they're doing this stuff. Yeah, I saw it described
Speaker 1: as kind of popping up like a periscope. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: So what about reproduction. I know that you really like
Speaker 1: how they court. Do you want to talk some more
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah. When they make kind of depends on
Speaker 1: which species it is. It's not set in stone, but
Speaker 1: they do. Those males use those spurs that were originally
Speaker 1: limbs to stroke the female, and once they impregnate them,
Speaker 1: the ladies they lay eggs. Actually, um, which is another
Speaker 1: thing that's different than other boas even is that they
Speaker 1: give birth to live young, but pythons give give birth
Speaker 1: to little egg Well, I guess big eggs because some
Speaker 1: of these things are a couple of feet long when
Speaker 1: they come out when they hatch. I saw there about
Speaker 1: the size of chicken eggs. Well, how could they be
Speaker 1: two ft long? I don't know, crazy, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess maybe they eat themselves while
Speaker 1: they're in the egg. Uh. They do provide most of
Speaker 1: the time some parental care, and they make little nest
Speaker 1: Mama does and keep some warm and like protected spaces
Speaker 1: under logs and stuff like that, and you know, sort
Speaker 1: of burrowed areas and they coil around them. Um. If
Speaker 1: they since temperature changing whatever, the mother will sort of
Speaker 1: flex her muscles and sort of can tracked in place
Speaker 1: to heat up her own body to warm up the eggs.
Speaker 1: That's called shivering thermogenesis. And they're not feeding when this
Speaker 1: is going on. They're only leaving their nest if they
Speaker 1: want to really warm up, and they call that basking,
Speaker 1: just like we do. Yeah, and then the eggs hatch
Speaker 1: and the mom says, see you, and that's that um.
Speaker 1: And depending on the species, like they they will um
Speaker 1: reproduce fairly frequently. I think a female snake um produces
Speaker 1: about forty eggs every two years. They start breeding at
Speaker 1: about three to four years old, so like they're you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty successful family of snakes. They reproduce pretty frequently.
Speaker 1: And then I guess because the hatchlings are so big
Speaker 1: when they're born, they don't really need to be raised
Speaker 1: or nurtured or protected. They're just on their own from
Speaker 1: the moment they come out of the egg, and they
Speaker 1: can live decades. They can live a long long time,
Speaker 1: which is why a lot of snake enthusiasts love him
Speaker 1: as pets. I think the San Diego zeus says about
Speaker 1: thirty five years, which is that's a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's at the tippy top. So, Chuck, I believe that
Speaker 1: we should speak uh at length about the Burmese python
Speaker 1: because this is as far as pythons go, it's very
Speaker 1: very beautiful snake. It's actually highly prized for its skin.
Speaker 1: Sad for the Burmese python, but it also has a
Speaker 1: really interesting story here in the United States. That's right. Um.
Speaker 1: They have pale tan, sort of gray bodies sometimes yellow brown.
Speaker 1: They have these big sort of reddish splotches. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they have their sort of um almost like they were
Speaker 1: drawn around their outlined in different colors white or yellow usually,
Speaker 1: and they are really pretty. And they are in Florida. Um,
Speaker 1: just like uh, we were talking about the alligators. There's
Speaker 1: I don't I mean, I guess you would call it
Speaker 1: a python problem. In one sense, it's it's not as
Speaker 1: much of a problem in that they're not really like
Speaker 1: coming out of the wild and attacking people really um,
Speaker 1: but they're they're make wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem
Speaker 1: there as far as mammals go, it's an ecological disaster
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact. Like it's if you're in
Speaker 1: the Everglades and you care about biodiversity, you you have
Speaker 1: a real problem with the Burmese python, which have been
Speaker 1: really successful in setting up shop in the Everglades specifically. UM.
Speaker 1: But they're an invasive species because they're not supposed to
Speaker 1: be there. There haven't been snakes this large native to
Speaker 1: the to the America's since long before humans were around.
Speaker 1: So they came in and there they have no predators
Speaker 1: there themselves, like an apex predator, and um, they've been
Speaker 1: eating everything they can get their hands on, basically. And
Speaker 1: the crazy thing about this is that they set up
Speaker 1: shop in the Everglades because people started releasing them um
Speaker 1: as pets. They were pets that got released and abandoned,
Speaker 1: and now they're huge problem in Florida. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: not just like oh, you know there's been a decline
Speaker 1: in in this roadent or this species. There was a
Speaker 1: study and this is in twelve even Uh, the raccoon
Speaker 1: population dropped nine three percent, possums almost extinct ninety eight
Speaker 1: point nine percent, bobcats eighty seven point five percent, and
Speaker 1: this from to two thousand twelve. Uh. And essentially foxes
Speaker 1: and and rabbits have all but disappeared in the Everglades. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so again that's an ecological catastrophe because not only is
Speaker 1: it eating all of these important like um animals, they're
Speaker 1: also competing with other larger stuff for food too, so
Speaker 1: they're having an effect on like the local alligators and
Speaker 1: other like probably the whatever panthers are down there. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's a huge problem that they're there, and as
Speaker 1: a result they're finding that um that Lord is basically
Speaker 1: trying to figure out anything it can do to handle
Speaker 1: this stuff. And I read that there's this thing called
Speaker 1: the Python Challenge, the Annual Python Challenge, where they basically say, hey,
Speaker 1: anybody and everybody who has a gun or a stick
Speaker 1: or a knife or whatever you want to use to
Speaker 1: kill a python, will give ten thousand dollars to the
Speaker 1: person who kills the most pythons this year during this
Speaker 1: Python Challenge. That's the level that Florida is at right now,
Speaker 1: and it's having almost no effect because there's number one,
Speaker 1: so many of them, but also because it is so
Speaker 1: hard to see a python, even when you're basically standing
Speaker 1: on top of it. It's that good. A Burmese python
Speaker 1: is that good at camouflaging itself in the Everglades. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that in the twenty eggs a year, right, Well that
Speaker 1: was another thing to chuck is because the hatchlings are
Speaker 1: so big. Do you remember when we talked about alligators
Speaker 1: and how their numbers are kept in check because rack
Speaker 1: coons will eat their hatchlings. Well, these Burmese pythons hatchlings
Speaker 1: are so big. There's nothing in the Everglades that is
Speaker 1: going to eat them. So they're incredibly successful at reproducing too.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. I'm trying to imagine something
Speaker 1: thirty six inches long coming out of a chicken egg.
Speaker 1: I know, even if it was, I guess it would
Speaker 1: have to be the width of like a worm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be a little bit bigger, it would have
Speaker 1: to be thin. But again, pythons are known for their
Speaker 1: bulky nous, right, So I don't know. I just saw
Speaker 1: I read a I believe it was a Smithsonian article
Speaker 1: that was kind of the journalist was embedded with people who,
Speaker 1: you know, hunt and track Burmese pythons in the Everglades.
Speaker 1: Apparently there's an all women tracking team called the Everglades
Speaker 1: Avengers um and like they somebody who knows what they're
Speaker 1: talking about, describes it as the size of a chicken egg.
Speaker 1: So that's where I got that from. So act if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, they were wrong. They look a little bigger,
Speaker 1: but not much bigger. I guess they're just wrapped up.
Speaker 1: They must just be really thin and bulk up really fast.
Speaker 1: It goes stroying when they come out of their egg.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the Everglades. You're definitely all over the Everglades,
Speaker 1: but they're expanding their territory. They're also in Big Cypress
Speaker 1: National Preserve. They are in Collier Seminole State Forest. They
Speaker 1: have been found in Miami, mh. They have been found
Speaker 1: in the Florida Keys, which is means one of two things.
Speaker 1: Either someone brought them there and release them there, or
Speaker 1: they can tolerate saltwater. They were python swimming in the ocean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently that's been documented that they're you know, they're good
Speaker 1: swimmers and they comp apparently tolerate saltwater, so it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible they swim under the keys. Could you imagine doing
Speaker 1: a little ocean swimming and seeing a freaking python. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Because I mean these things get big, like in their
Speaker 1: native habitat um in Southeast Asia. They it up to
Speaker 1: about twenty six and two pounds. Apparently the ones in
Speaker 1: Florida usually are average about eight to ten feet, so
Speaker 1: that's still a very significant bulky snake that you would
Speaker 1: see coming swimming at you while you're waiting in the water,
Speaker 1: going how are you? I think those are I think
Speaker 1: the ones in Miami those are African pythons are right, yes,
Speaker 1: which apparently are almost indistinguishable from Burmese pythons to the
Speaker 1: average person. So suburban and urban areas of Miami have pythons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they also have boa constrictors. Apparently there's a big iguana
Speaker 1: problem down there as well, all from just jerks releasing
Speaker 1: their pets that they don't want any longer because they
Speaker 1: there's there's a really big problem with in scrupulous um
Speaker 1: snake dealers, backyard breeders, people who actually have storefronts um
Speaker 1: even like corporate chain pet stores selling snakes um and
Speaker 1: and being like you have to kill a mouse to
Speaker 1: feed this thing. Um. There's a lot of like this.
Speaker 1: It's not just intuitive how to keep a snake happy
Speaker 1: and healthy, and so people get overwhelmed by snakes and
Speaker 1: they don't know what to do with them. So if
Speaker 1: you're in Florida around Miami. You just release it in
Speaker 1: your backyard and say see you later, and the snake
Speaker 1: takes off and becomes a problem in the Everglades with
Speaker 1: a tear rolling down its cheek. That's right through Pastco
Speaker 1: Pasco and don't look back, right, and it turns around
Speaker 1: and you have to punch a snake in the face
Speaker 1: and go go right. I'd never liked you to begin with. Uh,
Speaker 1: I think we need to take a second break, stol Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do that, and we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what you can do if you do
Speaker 1: see a python in the wild, and all about pet pythons,
Speaker 1: the sweetest kind right after this. All right, we've established
Speaker 1: that you're probably not in danger of being attacked by
Speaker 1: a python in the wild in the United States. Um,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, that has not happened. I
Speaker 1: don't even think once. Right, that's my understanding. All right, good,
Speaker 1: let's just keep that going. Let's keep that record intact. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you do see a python in the wild, if
Speaker 1: you're living in Florida, they have apps. Now, they have
Speaker 1: hot lines. I've got one is the name of the program.
Speaker 1: There's a hot line eight one or smartphone applications. I've
Speaker 1: got one. You can just get that app if you
Speaker 1: live in the area, and you just report that thing.
Speaker 1: If you don't have the app, just go to the
Speaker 1: National Park ranger say hey, I saw python over there.
Speaker 1: By that time, it's probably way too late. Um, they're
Speaker 1: probably out of there, but you should definitely report it
Speaker 1: because it's a big, big issue and it's not you know,
Speaker 1: I guess it sounds a little awful that they're just saying,
Speaker 1: go kill as many as you can for ten thousand bucks.
Speaker 1: But it is, like you said, it is wrecking the
Speaker 1: ecosystem down there, and that's that's not good for anyone, know,
Speaker 1: and the people like it's still sad for the Burmese pythons.
Speaker 1: They're just doing their thing. They just happen to be
Speaker 1: very successful. It's the people who released them that are
Speaker 1: really at fault and deserve everyone's scorn. Sure, but we
Speaker 1: should talk about the ball python, which and this is
Speaker 1: sort of the uh, the the go to pet. If
Speaker 1: you want a constrictor and you don't want to Boa,
Speaker 1: you can go with the old ball python. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: a lot more docile, they're much smaller, they grow maybe
Speaker 1: to five or six feet. They don't move around much.
Speaker 1: They don't they're not super active, so they are as
Speaker 1: if you're going to have a snake as a pet,
Speaker 1: a ball python is a good way to go for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They've got little dark uh stripes a lot times on
Speaker 1: their face. You have like through like through their eyes.
Speaker 1: It's very pretty, Yeah, very pretty snake. Uh. They have
Speaker 1: these again those dark blotches that are outlined in a
Speaker 1: lighter color. Very attractive skins. And again it's very sad
Speaker 1: that their skins are being used for you know, bipoachers
Speaker 1: or whatever to sell. Uh. They there are albino pythons
Speaker 1: as well, which has become such a favorite snake that
Speaker 1: they're actually breeding this into them. Yeah, they don't have
Speaker 1: albini is. Um, they have a melotint ism, a melan
Speaker 1: a melan is ism they I think that proves that
Speaker 1: doesn't have quite the ring though melanists DoSM whatever. But
Speaker 1: one of the there's actually some types of ball pythons
Speaker 1: that um, they'll have like a yellow body and then
Speaker 1: their stripes are actually lacking in pigments so it looks
Speaker 1: like yellow and white. Um. There's ones that have black
Speaker 1: stripes but they're lacking pig men in their body, so
Speaker 1: it's like this black and white the really gorgeous snakes
Speaker 1: for sure. Yes, and like you said, they are docile.
Speaker 1: They're good. If you have never even had a snake before,
Speaker 1: it could be a good place to start if you've
Speaker 1: never if you didn't even know snakes existed. The bald
Speaker 1: python is a great place to start. It is. They're
Speaker 1: called ball pythons because if they get threatened, they curl
Speaker 1: up and roll up in a little ball. It's very cute.
Speaker 1: It's very sensible too. So um, if you are going
Speaker 1: to buy a snake, you probably do not want a
Speaker 1: wild caught ball python because when they're caught, they don't
Speaker 1: really want to leave their home in the wilderness and
Speaker 1: come to your home, so they're going to be stressed out. Snakes,
Speaker 1: like all other captive animals, who get bored and they're
Speaker 1: not cared for, can just can um display zookosis and
Speaker 1: other terrible habits. Um. So you would probably want to
Speaker 1: get one from a breeder or a pet store or
Speaker 1: something like that. But again you should consider um you're
Speaker 1: taking something out of the wild, even if it wasn't
Speaker 1: born in the wild, and keeping it in a little
Speaker 1: twenty gallon aquarium in your house. So I think that
Speaker 1: part through first. Yeah, and they don't, Um, it's not
Speaker 1: mean to keep them in a smaller enclosure. They like
Speaker 1: tight spaces, So you don't need to get this huge
Speaker 1: thing for your ball python. Um no, you would, that
Speaker 1: would be mean, actually is from what Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they need a little bit of room, but they like
Speaker 1: they're not real active again, and they like tight spaces. Uh.
Speaker 1: They it has to be really secure because they are
Speaker 1: great at getting out of those cages and exploring your apartment.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons we talked about their lifespan.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons people um release them
Speaker 1: sometimes is even though they know this getting into it,
Speaker 1: it's hard to make a thirty year commitment to something.
Speaker 1: So if you're you know, if you're some forty to
Speaker 1: fifty year old dude and you're like get into snakes
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you're not thinking about what's going
Speaker 1: to be going on when you're eighty, Uh, you might
Speaker 1: us away, your family may not know what to do
Speaker 1: with it, and release it. So this is a long
Speaker 1: term commitment that you really really need to think through,
Speaker 1: right if you're going to do this, Let's say you're
Speaker 1: under the age of fifty and you're like, I'm into
Speaker 1: snakes now, Um, there are some things you want to do. Um.
Speaker 1: You want to keep your snake nice and warm. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in fact, you want to have basically dual climate
Speaker 1: zones in your twenty gallon or thirty gallon aquarium, depending
Speaker 1: on the size of the snake. Um. You want to
Speaker 1: keep it somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy eight degrees
Speaker 1: in the in the tank in general. And then you
Speaker 1: want to fahrenheit thank you, Celsie's I think would melt
Speaker 1: the snake. Um. And then you want to keep a
Speaker 1: little area for basking even hotter. Remember you talked about
Speaker 1: how snakes like to bask. Um this one. This is
Speaker 1: going to be more like eight eight to ninety two
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheight, so the snake can be like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go warm up over here on my nice little rock.
Speaker 1: And Um. If you do that and you keep track
Speaker 1: of your temperatures, like you have to really make sure
Speaker 1: it stays like this, then it will be much happier
Speaker 1: than otherwise. Yeah, but you want to screen those lights off.
Speaker 1: You don't want it actually touching the bulb because that
Speaker 1: can burn their little skin. And there was one of
Speaker 1: the thing that um they really love is as branches.
Speaker 1: They love to hang on tree branches. So if you
Speaker 1: could outfit your aquarium, it's got to be sturdy. Don't
Speaker 1: just put like some sort of lightweight limb from your yard.
Speaker 1: But if you can affix like a really sturdy limb
Speaker 1: in your your python cage, they're gonna be pretty happy
Speaker 1: with you as an owner. And it will also probably
Speaker 1: give them a place to hide too. They want to
Speaker 1: have a place to hide UM so that they can
Speaker 1: feel safe and secure. And then they also like to
Speaker 1: soak too, apparently also when they're molting um shedding their skin,
Speaker 1: they like to soak. So you want a little tub,
Speaker 1: but they want to feel secure when they're in their
Speaker 1: little tub of water too, So you probably want to
Speaker 1: have like a lidded plastic container that you've cut a
Speaker 1: hole out in the top and smooth the edges out.
Speaker 1: You could be sure to do that UM so that
Speaker 1: the snake can go inside it's little tub and soak
Speaker 1: but also feel and closed in there too. Right And finally, uh,
Speaker 1: part of being the owner of a constrictor that you've
Speaker 1: got to feed these things. And when you have them
Speaker 1: in your house and their domesticated, there's not snake food
Speaker 1: that you shake out like a fish. Right as you
Speaker 1: have this big can in just a bunch of mice
Speaker 1: shake count Yeah, well that's what you gotta do, man,
Speaker 1: You gotta you gotta feed them. Uh, they need to
Speaker 1: be fed every week or maybe every two weeks, kind
Speaker 1: of depending on their appetite. If they're young, you gotta
Speaker 1: start out with a little tiny mice about every five
Speaker 1: to seven days, and then as they get bigger, their
Speaker 1: diet's gonna grow. So if you end up with a
Speaker 1: six ft python, you're gonna have to feed it something
Speaker 1: that will fill it up. In judging by this this
Speaker 1: person feeding it this dead rabbit, it's not a fun task.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they don't mind. They're up for that, but
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Um one of the other things too.
Speaker 1: Like this is all if you have a bald python,
Speaker 1: which is manageable and is not going to be able
Speaker 1: to harm you even if it tried. But if you say,
Speaker 1: have a Burmese python, there's entire steps that you have
Speaker 1: to follow through that you wouldn't with other kinds of um,
Speaker 1: smaller pythons, like, for example, when you're feeding it, you
Speaker 1: never ever want to dangle its food in front of
Speaker 1: your face, in front of its face with your hands,
Speaker 1: because it might bite your hand and start to get
Speaker 1: ahold of you. Um. Apparently, when it's feeding time and
Speaker 1: they've sensed food, all of those genes start going crazy
Speaker 1: and they like just they get a little bit of
Speaker 1: like food fever, and they're not they're not behaving in
Speaker 1: a way that you might expect them to. Write UM,
Speaker 1: So you never want to dangle it with your bare
Speaker 1: hands or your hands. You want to use like force
Speaker 1: ups or something like that. And then also if you
Speaker 1: have a Burmese python, you never feed it by yourself.
Speaker 1: You always have to have at least one other adult
Speaker 1: around with you, just in case something bad does happen.
Speaker 1: It does happen from time to time. There's a guy
Speaker 1: in the Bronx who was found dead in his apartment
Speaker 1: and his pound eleven ft Burmese python was wrapped around
Speaker 1: him still. He apparently had gone to feed it outside
Speaker 1: of its cage a chicken that he had used his
Speaker 1: hand to dangle in front of it, and it just
Speaker 1: went bad. But that is extremely rare. But the point
Speaker 1: is that can happen, so you have to be extra
Speaker 1: safe and smart when you're feeding a Burmese python. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it happens quick, like when this rabbit was dangled there.
Speaker 1: There's such a chill sort of species, the way they
Speaker 1: move around. And you know, we've all been to the
Speaker 1: nature center and some people have held them and petted them.
Speaker 1: They look very relaxed. But when that rabbit was dangled it,
Speaker 1: when it popped at it and wrapped around it, it it
Speaker 1: happened very very fast. And they will bite you too.
Speaker 1: Even though it's not like a venomous bite. Um, it
Speaker 1: still hurts, like their teeth can break off into your
Speaker 1: hand or your arm or wherever. So it's not a
Speaker 1: pleasant sensation from what I understand, even though it's not
Speaker 1: going to kill you. That's right. And then finally, finally,
Speaker 1: as far as endangerment goes, there are thirteen species on
Speaker 1: the International Union of Conservation of Nature's Red List of
Speaker 1: Threatened species, and I think the Ramsey's python is endangered.
Speaker 1: The Burmese and the mean mar are vulnerable, so is
Speaker 1: the Indian python too, apparently, but plentiful and Florida it
Speaker 1: sounds like. Yeah, I was surprised that the Burmese pythons
Speaker 1: still on that list for as good as it seeing Florida.
Speaker 1: But maybe they're just thinking of the natural range of it.
Speaker 1: That's right. And the biggest threat to pythons you guessed
Speaker 1: it stars, Yes, not sharks. Ah you got anything else?
Speaker 1: I don't have anything else. Thanks for putting this one together.
Speaker 1: Shout out to definitely Live Science UM for that one
Speaker 1: article about the guy who found out how you could
Speaker 1: sequence the genes of pythons and just be amazed at
Speaker 1: what you find. Yeah, thanks to Life Science. And there
Speaker 1: were there were a bunch of different snake specialty websites
Speaker 1: that we dug into for this sweet um. And if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about pythons and just start
Speaker 1: reading about pythons and think really long and hard before
Speaker 1: you actually get one as a pet. But if you do,
Speaker 1: take good care of it and tell it that we
Speaker 1: said high. And since I said that, it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail, I'm gonna call this Salem Witch Family Trial
Speaker 1: Family Connection. Hey, guys, have been listening to the show
Speaker 1: for a few years, thoroughly enjoyed them. Recently listened to
Speaker 1: Salem witchcraft trials and something towards the instruct me. You
Speaker 1: mentioned that Salem was in Essex County. My mother's family
Speaker 1: settled in Essex in the mid seventeenth century. So I
Speaker 1: did a little research and found out that there was
Speaker 1: an Elizabeth Morris in Newbury who was convicted of witchcraft
Speaker 1: in eighteen I'm sorry, sixteen eighty. She was originally sentenced
Speaker 1: to death, but that was changed to home confinement after
Speaker 1: a second trial, and it turns out she is my
Speaker 1: seventh great grandmother. Pretty cool. That was a bit of
Speaker 1: fun family history to share with the Fens, with the
Speaker 1: friends and family this Halloween season. And that is from
Speaker 1: George Oaks. That is a great email, George Oakes. We
Speaker 1: actually heard from a lot of people who were related
Speaker 1: to people who were executed at the Salem witchcraft trials.
Speaker 1: Did you know? I think we heard from a Corey
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other people. So shout out to
Speaker 1: all of you guys carrying the family lying on for
Speaker 1: those old witches. But none of those matters, no, Now
Speaker 1: they don't tell people. Um, well, if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, you can Who was that
Speaker 1: that wrote in George George Ookes If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us like George did, you can
Speaker 1: send us an email like George did, to Stuff Podcasts
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
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Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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