Burmese python, Florida
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Scientists found a shocking way to track Florida’s invasive pythons: let the snakes swallow GPS-collared opossums.
Florida scientists are using opossums to secretly track invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades-and it's working.
A bizarre discovery in Florida: GPS-collared opossums are now helping researchers hunt invasive Burmese pythons.
In Key Largo this spring, wildlife crews started turning local opossums into unlikely scouts, slipping lightweight tracking collars around their necks and releasing them back into the mangrove thickets.
Contractors with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Thomas Aycock, left, and Tom Rahill, founder of the Swamp Apes, a veterans therapy nonprofit, show off an invasive Burmese python caught earlier, as they wait for sunset to hunt pythons, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in the Florida Everglades. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
Are Florida's invasive Burmese pythons are more active in warmer months? Signs show signs of cold tolerance, potentially spreading north.
Docile, furry and cute to some, possums have become an unexpected ally in the effort to slow the invasion of Burmese pythons, a snake that has decimated ecosystems in Florida.