Everglades National Park, Florida (May 22, 2026) – Grisly new footage from the Florida Everglades reveals a 5.2-meter Burmese python slowly digesting a young American alligator, its distended body stretched grotesquely around the reptile in a stark symbol of an ecological catastrophe now in its third decade.

Wildlife biologists with the USGS and South Florida Water Management District recovered the snake on May 17 during an ongoing python removal operation. Inside its stomach: the remains of a 1.8-meter alligator. While adult alligators occasionally prey on smaller pythons, large invasive snakes have increasingly turned the tables on juvenile gators, compounding the collapse of the food web.

A landmark 2012 USGS study documented the nightmare scale of the invasion: raccoon populations plunged 99.3%, opossums 98.9%, and bobcats 87.5% in core python zones since 1997. Marsh rabbits, cottontail rabbits, and foxes have essentially vanished — declines approaching 99–100% in heavily invaded areas of the Everglades. More than 23,000 Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) have been removed since 2000, yet experts estimate tens to hundreds of thousands remain, with detection rates below 1%.

“These pythons have no natural predators here and an almost limitless appeтιтe,” said Dr. Margaret McCleery, University of Florida wildlife ecologist. “They don’t just eat the small mammals — they’re rewiring the entire Everglades. With prey bases gone, native predators like panthers, bobcats, and alligators are starving.”

The pythons, released by the exotic pet trade after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, now range from Lake Okeechobee to the Keys. Their impact has cascaded: wading birds, deer fawns, and even large mammals have declined sharply as the snakes consume everything from rodents to white-tailed deer.

Despite record Python Challenges — nearly 300 snakes removed in the 2025 event — officials admit eradication is unlikely. The invasive nightmare continues to spread, serving as a grim warning about the irreversible damage one released species can inflict on a delicate ecosystem.