Latest Snakes News

Huge python grabs Thai woman in her kitchen, squeezes her two hours before she can be freed

Sep. 19, 2024 08:11 AM EDT

BANGKOK (AP) — A 64-year-old woman was preparing to do her evening dishes at her home outside Bangkok when she felt a sharp pain in her thigh and looked down to see a huge python taking hold of her. “I was about to scoop some water and when I sat down it bit me immediately,”...

Grand prize winner removed 20 Burmese pythons from the wild in Florida challenge

Sep. 17, 2024 16:57 PM EDT

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It’s official, the Florida Python Challenge this year has a winner. The $10,000 grand prize went to Ronald Kiger, who removed 20 Burmese pythons from the Florida Everglades during the 10-day hunt, which was meant to bring awareness to the threat that...

A 13-foot (and growing) python was seized from a New York home and sent to a zoo

Sep. 05, 2024 12:31 PM EDT

NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. (AP) — A 13-foot (4-meter) Burmese python was confiscated from an upstate New York man who was keeping the still-growing snake in a small tank, authorities said. The state Department of Environmental Conservation said it got a complaint about an illegally owned...

Newborn rattlesnakes at a Colorado 'mega den' are making their live debut

Aug. 29, 2024 12:08 PM EDT

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born. Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these...

A hunter’s graveyard shift: grabbing pythons in the Everglades

Aug. 18, 2024 00:31 AM EDT

HOLEY LAND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA, Fla. (AP) — It's after midnight when the windshield fogs up on Thomas Aycock's F-250 pickup truck. He flashes a low smile as he slowly maneuvers through the sawgrass, down dirt roads deep in the Florida Everglades. His windshield just confirmed...

Snake hunters will wrangle invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades during Florida's 10-day challenge

Aug. 09, 2024 20:40 PM EDT

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Friday marked the start of the annual Florida Python Challenge, where hunters head into the Everglades to track down invasive Burmese pythons in hopes of grabbing a share of $30,000 in prizes. The annual 10-day hunt, which started more than a decade...

Connecticut man bitten by rare rattlesnake he tried to help ends up in coma

Aug. 01, 2024 13:37 PM EDT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — When Joseph Ricciardella saw the snake in the road, he stopped his car and tried to help it avoid getting run over. The attempted good deed landed him in a Connecticut hospital in a medically induced coma after the timber rattlesnake, which is rare in the...

Webcam monitors hundreds of rattlesnakes at a Colorado 'mega den' for citizen science

Jul. 16, 2024 23:29 PM EDT

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — They creep, slither and slide over and around each other by the dozen and now there's a webcam so that anybody can watch them online at any time, even at night. A “mega den” with as many as 2,000 rattlesnakes isn't top binge-watching for many people....

Yes, some animals can have babies without a mate. Here's how

Jul. 03, 2024 16:58 PM EDT

A boa constrictor in the U.K. gave birth to 14 babies — without a mate. Is it a miracle? The result of a secret rendezvous? Probably not. Females of species have the ability to reproduce asexually, without sperm from a male. The process is called parthenogenesis, from the Greek...