A turning point may have been made in Florida’s war against the invasive Burmese Python. It appears that Winter is stepping in as an indomitable ally as scientists observe a python throwing up a whole deer in Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve.
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You don’t need to look too far back in history to find examples of solid offences grinding to a halt thanks to the slow and suffocating approach of Winter. And it is fighting back against the pervasive pythons plaguing Florida.
A study was published in the Ecology and Evolution journal in July. Travis R. Mangione and his associates analysed a sighting found in November 2024 of a whole regurgitated whitetail deer.
The Burmese Pythons have proved a persistent pest since the ’70s, but the sighting of a python regurgitating a whole deer has scientists hopeful. The images published in the study are rather gruesome, but undeniably fascinating.
What’s truly interesting is that scientists have never observed this behaviour in the wild before.
“Almost every day is a surprise,” said Mark Sandfoss, senior author of the study and a biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), to Live Science. “Pythons are constantly doing things I never imagined, but this is such a beautiful moment where science and basic principles line up with field observations.”
Python Regurgitating Deer Due To The Cold
You can read the study if you want the specifics, but put simply, the low temperatures of the winter months can prove problematic for the pythons.
Being cold-blooded creatures, they require the sun to maintain a temperature that allows their systems to operate smoothly. When it’s freezing cold outside, their internal processes slow down.
This means that the python’s digestive capabilities would be slower than the decomposition rate of the deer. And no one wants to eat spoiled food.
The female python had the deer in her digestive tract for 10 days. When the temperature declined in a cold snap, however, the snake had no choice but to regurgitate the deer. Leaving a pretty gnarly corpse on the ground.
Scientists are hopeful the cold weather will slow birth rates, as pythons in these situations won’t have the energy to reproduce.