Last week, researchers at the University of Florida got a present — a gigantic Burmese python, the largest anyone had ever found in the Everglades. The good news: It was dead. The bad news: It weighed 164 pounds, measured a record 17.5 feet in length, and was a foot wide. For context, that’s as long as a medium-sized U-Haul, and as heavy as Tom Daley. It also had 87 eggs inside it that could have grown into 87 more monster pythons. CNN reports:
The snake was so big that researchers had to pile it on top of itself and wheel it into the examination room on a flat cart. They laid it on a series of tables lined up end to end, and then five researchers worked side by side to dissect the length of the snake.
Burmese pythons aren’t native to the Everglades, but they’re increasingly common and are eating all the cute animals, like rabbits and foxes. One of them ATE A DEER.They could basically take over. And they’re all terrifyingly huge. This dead python may have broken a couple of records, but not by much — the last record-holder was 16.8 feet long and had 85 eggs inside of her. It’s only a matter of time before we have to abandon Florida and erect a really big, electrified wall to keep these things inside.