A phrase of warning: For those who’re afraid of snakes or blood-sucking bugs, then this video displaying a large python being eaten alive by a whole lot of ticks will virtually assuredly provide the creeps. It’s value watching anyway.
Mike Kimmel, a nuisance wildlife trapper who’s higher generally known as the Python Cowboy, recorded the video lately whereas he was out with purchasers on a guided python hunt in South Florida. The roughly 10-minute clip was uploaded to YouTube on Aug. 1, and it recaps an intense night time of snake looking within the Everglades. The actual spotlight of the hunt is when Kimmel’s monitoring canine, Otto, finds an enormous Burmese python that’s completely coated in ticks.
“Most likely the worst I’ve ever seen,” Kimmel writes within the video’s description, referring to the sheer variety of engorged ticks they discovered on the snake. “We most likely did this woman a favor by taking her out.”
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The nightmarish discovery comes as Otto works forward of the hunters and sniffs out the python that’s hiding within the sawgrass. “Good canine bubba,” Kimmel tells his canine across the four-minute mark as he follows Otto’s nostril and sees only a sliver of a Burmese python buried within the thick brush. It seems to be a giant feminine that’s guarding its nest, and the hunters stroll across the space to determine their greatest strategy. The snake hisses as they dig via the grass to attempt to discover the snake’s head. That’s when Kimmel sees the a whole lot of fats ticks already latched onto it. Some are as massive as grapes.
“That’s gonna be a juicy seize for any individual,” a person jokes off digicam.
Because the hunters transfer across the brush to get an excellent angle on the snake, Kimmel factors out that the feminine is guarding a clutch of eggs and unwilling to go away its nest. However the snake can also be exhausted from all of the ticks which are feeding on it and sapping its power. When one of many hunters grabs it close to the again of its head, the python uncoils with out placing up a lot of a combat, revealing the 17 eggs in its nest.
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“The very first thing I seen after the eggs was how this python was simply coated in ticks like I’ve by no means seen,” Kimmel says, recapping the footage towards the tip of the video. “This snake was simply being chewed to items. It had properly over 100 ticks on it, most likely a whole lot.”
After humanely killing the snake (which occurs offscreen), the hunters take away the python eggs from the nest, doing their half to chip away at the Everglades’ python downside.
Kimmel is one in every of many government-approved contractors throughout the state who concentrate on looking pythons and may receives a commission via incentive applications to kill as lots of the snakes as attainable. A lot of these snake hunters, together with python fans from everywhere in the nation, will collect this week in South Florida to compete within the Florida Python Problem.
Learn Subsequent: Watch: Snake Hunters Catch the Longest Python Ever Recorded in Florida
The snake-hunting competitors is a group occasion that may run from simply after midnight on Aug. 9 to five p.m. on August 18. individuals should full a web-based coaching course and pay attention to all contest guidelines, together with prohibitions on firearms and the usage of looking canines. Prizes will probably be awarded in a number of classes, together with the longest Burmese python caught, and whichever group catches essentially the most snakes wins the last word grand prize of $10,000.