Video Shows Scientists Removing Intact Alligator From 18-Foot Python

Overview

During a necropsy at a research lab in Florida, A team of scientists discovered a dead, intact 5-foot (1.5 m) alligator inside the stomach of an 18-foot (5.5 m) Burmese python. The team had euthanized the snake due to the negative impact these invasive species bring to the ecosystem.

The science and other stuff to know

Burmese pythons are one of the largest snakes in the world. They are capable of reaching 23 feet (7 meters) or more in length and can weigh up to 90 kilograms (200 pounds). These snakes wreak havoc on native species, successfully invading ecologically sensitive areas, as they have wide dietary preferences.

“They are eating our native wildlife,” Mike Kirkland, an invasive-species biologist who manages the South Florida Water Management District’s python-elimination program, told Insider. “They’re also outcompeting native animals for food.”

To control their population, scientists recommend killing them to “rescue” the ecosystem. And that’s what these scientists in the footage above were doing when they found an alligator inside a Burmese python.

Florida-based geoscientist Rosie Moore wrote on Instagram on November 1 that the euthanized python with the protruding stomach had been given to a lab for a necropsy, to gather scientific samples, and to research its diet.

Moore posted a video showing the alligator being extracted from the python’s stomach. The short clip shows the team feeling the snake’s enlarged, lumpy body before slicing its underside open to reveal the form of a full alligator beneath another layer of tissue. They then slice that open and slide the alligator out in an almost birth-like sequence.