In July 2023, a 22-year-old man pulled a Burmese python from the grass beside a road in Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida. The snake measured 19 feet, making it the longest Burmese python ever documented in the state. The snake was captured on Highway 41 near Monroe Station by Jake Walleri and his cousin Stephen Gauta, who hunt pythons together and post their catches online as The Glades Boys.
The cousins brought the snake to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples, where it was officially measured at 579 centimeters and weighed 125 pounds. It was a female and surpassed the previous length record, set in 2020, by three inches. Most pythons caught in Florida measure between six and nine feet.
The capture followed the discovery of the heaviest Burmese python on record in Florida, which took place about 13 months earlier. In June 2022, a team from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida found a female python weighing 215 pounds and measuring about 18 feet in Picayune Strand State Forest. The snake contained 122 developing eggs and the remains of a white-tailed deer. Both record-setting snakes came from the same general area of southwestern Florida.
Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia and were sold in the American pet trade for decades. Some snakes escaped or were released by owners. Biologists with the United States Geological Survey say pythons have been breeding in the Everglades since the 1980s, though a breeding population was not formally recognized until 2000. A popular account holds that Hurricane Andrew released hundreds of snakes from a breeding facility in 1992, but genetic evidence suggests the population grew from a small number of pets breeding quietly over a longer period.
Florida provides ideal conditions for the snakes. The climate is warm and wet, and the area is stocked with animals that have no experience with constrictors. A typical female python lays a clutch of 20 to 50 eggs, can breed every other year, and can live 20 years or more. The federal government banned importing Burmese pythons in January 2012, by which point the population was already established.
Research has documented significant declines in native mammals in Everglades National Park. A 2012 study led by Michael Dorcas compared road surveys from the late 1990s with surveys from 2003 to 2011 and found that raccoon sightings had dropped by 99.3 percent, opossums by 98.9 percent, and bobcats by 87.5 percent. No rabbits or foxes were recorded in the later surveys at all. The declines were most severe in the southern part of the park, where pythons had been present the longest.
In 2015, a team led by Robert McCleery from the University of Florida released 95 marsh rabbits with radio collars to test whether pythons were responsible. In areas where pythons were established, pythons accounted for 77 percent of rabbit deaths, and no rabbit population survived at the release sites. The study provided direct evidence that pythons were killing native wildlife.
Burmese pythons in Florida have been documented eating more than 85 species. The Conservancy of Southwest Florida once found a 31.5-pound python that had swallowed a 35-pound deer. Researchers have also found alligators inside pythons, including an 18-foot python that had consumed a five-foot alligator. Endangered species, including Key Largo wood rats and wood storks, have also been found in python stomachs.
Finding pythons in the swamp has proven extremely difficult. Their blotchy brown pattern blends into the sawgrass, and they spend most of their time motionless in flooded brush. In one study, experienced herpetologists spotted only about one percent of the pythons they knew were inside a fenced enclosure. Population estimates range from at least 30,000 to more than 300,000, and the wide range reflects how difficult the snakes are to count.
Florida has tried several approaches to control the population. In 2013, the state held a public hunt called the Python Challenge, which drew nearly 1,600 participants and resulted in 68 snakes being turned in. Later events produced larger totals, with the 2026 event removing 294 pythons. The state has also paid hunters through the Python Elimination Program and the Python Action Team, which offer hourly wages plus bonuses based on snake length. According to the state, more than 28,000 wild Burmese pythons have been removed from Florida since 2000.
One method developed by the Conservancy of Southwest Florida involves using male pythons to find females. The team catches adult males, surgically implants small radio transmitters, and releases them. The males follow their instincts during breeding season, which runs roughly from November through April, and lead biologists to large breeding females that human searchers would not otherwise find. Removing a breeding female prevents the eggs she would have produced over her remaining lifespan.
The team has removed more than 1,000 adult pythons since the program began, and by August 2025, the Conservancy reported that it had removed more than 20 tons of pythons. The team targets breeding females, and the Conservancy estimates it has prevented about 20,000 python eggs from hatching since 2013.
Genetic research published in 2018 by the United States Geological Survey examined tissue from about 400 pythons caught in Florida between 2001 and 2012. Most of the snakes were related, indicating a small number of founders. At least 13 of the snakes carried mitochondrial DNA from a different species, the Indian python, meaning some Florida pythons are hybrids.
Scientists continue to study the snakes, including where they came from and how they may adapt. A 215-pound female was found with the help of a male scout snake named Dion. The 19-foot female was found because she was lying beside a road when the cousins drove by. Researchers note that the snakes that set records are likely not the largest in the population. The biggest pythons are the oldest, and they are the most experienced at staying hidden. As of now, both records still stand.
