Bloodsucking worms from pythons are killing native Florida snakes, study says | Hacker News Reader

Bloodsucking worms from pythons are killing native Florida snakes, study says

floridatoday.com

52 pointsDoreenMichele29 comments

At first I thought the invasive pythons were being killed off by the parasite, which was great news, but the parasite is instead killing native Florida snakes, according to the article (edit: thanks DoreenMichele).

The Burmese pythons are the only predators that can kill Florida alligators. It's thought that owners of pet pythons released their snakes into the everglades when they didn't want them anymore through the 80s/90s, and the population became a problem starting in the 2000s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_pythons_in_Florida

What also might have contributed to the boom was Hurrican Andrew in 1992, when exotic wildlife sanctuaries and zoos in Dade County got destroyed and animals escaped:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1992-09-20-19922640... (1992 article)

I love how one of the proposed solutions to the problem is "introducing jaguars".

While I understand how that makes some sense, it is hilariously similar to the Simpsons' episode where flying lizard erase pigeons and are eliminated by introducing snakes which are eliminated by introducing snake-eating gorillas..

The Florida panther has had big problems not getting driven to endangerment. I can't imagine jaguars fairing much better

It seems like any jaguar might adopt to eat easier pray and ignore the pythons. I can’t imagine killing a python is easy.

Added the word native to the title. Hopefully, it will reduce confusion.

(Also changed in to from.)

The Economist recently did a piece on the efforts to contain the python. Seems like a losing battle:

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-men-fighting-flori...

HN discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19178296

Recently caught 17 foot python with 73 (!) eggs:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47851248

> "But laying their hands on fast-moving, highly dangerous, camouflaged reptiles in a swamp that extends for thousands of square miles is about as easy as it sounds."

Yeah, this doesn't sound super promising unless they find a very scalable solution :(

Drones + machine vision seems like it could solve it.

Somewhat off-topic but I was just reading about Tegus running rampant in Florida. It must be tough running the various municipalities down there considering there are so many species who could flourish there. You always hear about the Pythons but there are quite a few species who thrive.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/science/a-lizard-interlop...

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/florida-declar...

“There are relatives of this parasite that people have gotten by eating raw snakes”

Anyone have more info on people who eat raw snake in the US?

I can't find that in specific. I did find this:

http://survival-mastery.com/skills/scouting/edible-snakes.ht...

It makes me think that probably we are talking about extremist "preppers."

I also tripped across this article:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209182456.h...

Google "florida man".

Oh, I noticed.

Unpopular opinion incoming. But why should one snakes survival be more important than another?

Reducing biodiversity is a bad thing. Even if you concentrate on things that strictly benefit human beings, there can be unknown benefits ages from now. One example would be finding that the native Florida snake creates some sort of chemical (maybe in its venom or from one of its glands of organs) that can be used to treat some kind of human illness.

The food chain evolved as a single system that has all species working in tandem to control each other. When you remove links from the food chain, the entire chain falls apart.

For example, in Yellowstone, hunting wolves because they are a nuisance to humans caused their prey, elk, to overpopulate and consume all of the plant life along the rivers. Consequently, the rivers began to erode the soil and prevent many other animals from making the area their home. https://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-july/how-wolves-saved-the...

Isn't it the case that a new chain replaces the one that fell apart? If so, in what way chain number 1 was "better" then chain number 2?

It’s not the case necessarily. Evolution happened over millions of years and invasive species happen over tens of years or less.

If snakes were ecologically fungible it wouldn't matter, but they aren't.

When one of those snakes is notorious for eating humans it’s reasonable to deprioritize their survival.

https://www.livescience.com/44033-florida-pythons-rarely-att...

> The authors of the study[0] said they could only find one report of a free-ranging Burmese python fatality: the death of an infant in Hong Kong about a century ago.

[0]: https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wsb...

I absolutely disagree. Human habitation overlaps with very few predators these days, and when they do, I'd generally prefer relocating the humans over controlling the predator population.

Lions, tigers and leopards can eat humans. Yet, to many, their survival is a priority.

I thought it was about a computer worm written in python.

This isn’t so bad if it kills off water moccasins which will definitely kill you if they bite you. They like to hide in bushes or under trash cans and can easily lash out at you or a child if you get too close. A python is much easier to avoid, and generally restricts itself to the Everglades.

Water moccasins are cool snakes and it would be sad if they disappear.

Not when they bite your toddler and it dies damn near instantly.

They apparently kill less than a person per year, so that's unlikely to happen luckily.

Generally, it would be sad if they disappear somewhere I am not.

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