Let’s review an unusual sight.
A large alligator was captured on video dragging a giant Burmese python through the water in the Florida Everglades.
The video, filmed by tour guide Kelly Alvarez at the observation tower at Shark Canyon in Everglades National Park on Thanksgiving Day 2024, shows the alligator nicknamed “Godzilla” holding a dead python in its mouth and dragging the snake along the water.
“It’s huge,” someone says in the video. “That’s a really, really big python.”
Alvarez told USA TODAY she estimated the alligator was 10 to 12 feet long, and the python in the video appeared to be close to twice the length of the alligator.
“You know something is serious when this is something we’ve never seen before,” another tour guide said in the video.
“I saw a lot of alligators out here eating pythons… I’ve never seen a python that big,” Alvarez told USA Today.
See the video below.
How big was the largest Burmese python caught in Florida?
Burmese pythons are one of the largest snakes in the world, with the average adult length ranging from 10 to 16 feet, according to the University of Florida.
On July 10, 2023, a group of python hunters captured the longest Burmese python ever recorded in Big Cypress National Preserve in eastern Collier County.
This giant snake is 19 feet long.
In 2022, biologists with the Southwest Florida Conservancy captured the largest Burmese python ever recorded in the Florida Everglades. This giant female python weighed an eye-popping 215 pounds and was nearly 18 feet long.
Invasive Burmese pythons wreak havoc on Everglades ecosystem
Burmese pythons are an invasive species found in more than a thousand square miles of South Florida, including Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve and Collier-Seminole State Park.
Pythons have few natural predators and prey on native species, eating just about anything from voles to deer.
According to a 2012 study, they have contributed to the decline of raccoons, opossums, bobcats, foxes, swamp rabbits and cottontail rabbits.
Watch alligator drag giant Burmese python into water in Florida
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This article originally appeared in the Naples Daily News: Florida alligator drags giant python through Everglades: Video