Python Roadkill 04 Stock Footage

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Burmese pythons have an established permanent breeding population in South Florida and belong to the “new” apex predators of the Everglades today. Top predators like the american crocodiles and american alligators prey regularly on all kinds of reptiles, including pythons. An adult alligator will have little trouble to overpower, kill and eat any juvenile and in some cases even an adult constrictor. Nevertheless, a fully grown Burmese Python can reach over twenty feet in lengths and becomes extremely dangerous prey item for most crocodilians. These large constrictors have not much to fear and will feed on most animals they come across (including alligators) when hungry.
Pythons are non venomous snakes and kill by constricting their prey, wrapping its body around in a thigh coil until the animals dies of suffocation within a few minuets. The prey will be swallowed mostly head first and whole. This process can take considerable time during which the snake is vulnerable to attacks from other predators. Confrontations between pythons and alligator have been recorded during the last years but still, very little is know on the outcome of such “fights”.
The invasive burmese python has become Florida's top predator, feeding on any animal, including the powerful american alligator. It has been observed, that alligators can lower their heart rate to one beat per minute when under stress, such as when in the death grip of a hungry python. When the python thinks the alligator is dead it will start feeding immediately to avoid detection from other predators. But when the alligator awoke inside the python's body, it might have ensued in a desperate struggle to free itself, causing not just internal injuries but the death of the giant serpent. The alligator itself might have died of exhaustion in the end but this of course can only be a speculation as well.