Latest Snake Stories

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new study published in Integrative Zoology examines the impacts of cold temperatures on Burmese pythons. The study, 'Environmental, physiology and behavior limit the range expansion of invasive Burmese pythons in southeastern USA' (Jacobson et al. 2012), was prompted by a USGS climate prediction (Reed Rodda 2008) claiming feral Burmese pythons in the Everglades could expand as far north as the southern third of the US. Since the...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online The venom from one of the world’s most dangerous snakes contains a potent painkiller that works as well as morphine, but without the toxic side effects, French researchers reported on Wednesday. The deadly black mamba, which uses neurotoxins to paralyze and kill its prey, is one of the fastest and most lethal snakes in Africa. Its venom is among the fastest acting of any snake species, and a bite is lethal if not treated with...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists are studying various plants native to Africa in an attempt to develop new, natural treatments for snakebites. Marianne Molander from the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences has been working with a Danish team to try and find a locally available herbal antidote for snake venom. “Snake venom antidotes are expensive, it’s often a long way to the nearest doctor and it can be difficult to...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Florida's infestation of the Giant Burmese python species has gained even more ground this week, as scientists announced a record has been set in the state for the alien snake species. The biggest Burmese python ever caught in the Florida wilderness has been reported in the Everglades, measuring 17-feet, 7-inches. The snake weighs 165 pounds and was found in Everglades National Park, according to the University of Florida....

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A deadly disease outbreak that devastates boa constrictors and pythons has been discovered, which scientists call Inclusion Body Disease (IBD). This disease outbreak among snakes is being investigated by scientists at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco. The team said they may have found a virus that is responsible for this common, but deadly disease, which could ultimately help lead to prevention and treatment options. IBD is...

University of Florida researchers curating a 17-foot-7-inch Burmese python, the largest found in Florida, discovered 87 eggs in the snake, also a state record. Scientists at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus examined the internal anatomy of the 164.5-pound snake Friday. The animal was brought to the Florida Museum from Everglades National Park as part of a long-term project with the U.S. Department of the Interior to research methods for managing the state’s invasive...

Paleontologist Carlos Jaramillo's group at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and colleagues at North Carolina State University and the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered a new species of fossil turtle that lived 60 million years ago in what is now northwestern South America. The team's findings were published in the Journal of Paleontology. The new turtle species is named Puentemys mushaisaensis because it was found in La Puente pit in Cerrejón Coal Mine, a...

Tiger snakes in Australia are of varied size, with some isolated island populations being twice the size of those on the mainland. New research conducted by Fabien Aubret of La Station d'Ecologie Experimentale du CNRS à Moulis, published in “The American Naturalist,” theorizes that the mainland snakes eat mainly frogs and always have. When sea level rose after that last Ice Age, some tiger snakes were stranded on islands where frogs could not survive because of dry conditions. These...

On May 1, USDA Forest Service, U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Memphis Zoo, and other partners released seven young Louisiana pine snakes on a restored longleaf pine stand in the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. The release is the fourth in 2 years, part of a plan to restore a very rare snake to its range in Louisiana. Last year the partners released 20 newly hatched snakes; this year’s snakes are 6 months old and about 3 feet long....

Burmese pythons, which have already been observed attacking birds in the Florida Everglades, have now been seen eating those birds' eggs directly from the nest, according to new research from the Smithsonian Institution. According to Jennifer Welsh of LiveScience, the study, which has been published in the March issue of the journal Reptiles & Amphibians: Conservation and Natural History, details three cases in which the Smithsonian researchers discovered eggs inside of the pythons,...