COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. – A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer and a python contractor in Collier County uncovered quite a catch.
They found not one, but two mother pythons measuring ten and 17 feet long, and both with large nests full of eggs.
Alex McDuffie is the very brave man who captured the mama pythons and their babies.
It happened Monday at Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee.
McDuffie first captured one hatchling, only to discover, with an FWC officer on patrol, 18 more live hatchlings.
They knew that where there are hatchlings, a mother isn’t far behind.
The pair then found a Burmese python on a nest. She was sitting on 23 unhatched eggs.
The hunt wasn’t over though, because a few feet away there was another nest. This one with 74 recently hatched eggs.
They found the mom too, and she was a big one, measuring 17 feet long.
For those keeping track, that’s two adult female pythons, 18 hatchlings and 23 unhatched eggs.
As for the other 74 hatched eggs, those hatchlings are still somewhere in Big Cypress National Preserve.
This was the biggest python McDuffie has ever caught, and he’s been catching snakes since he was a kid, but believe it or not, 17 feet isn’t the biggest python to be captured in Florida.
Last month, a female python nearly 18 feet long and weighing 215 pounds was caught. She is holding the record for the largest snake by weight ever captured in the state.