Florida’s Giant Pythons Are Disappearing — And Scientists Found What’s Hunting Them

[00:00:00]Uh, Florida pythons are slithering for cover. The  Conservancy of Southwest Florida just shattered its own record for python removal. They say they  caught 177 snakes in Kier County from November of last year to this past April. That brings their  total up to 1,750 since 2013. For 40 years, the Everglades have been wrestling with a problem  no one could solve. Burmese pythons spreading out of control. and nothing seemed capable of  stopping them. Then one morning in Big Cypress, researchers found something that made no sense.  23 Burmese pythons lay scattered across the ground. They ranged in size from young snakes  to fully grown adults. All of them were dead, and every single body carried the same disturbing  sign. Something had come for them. Scooped out the soft flesh, devoured the organs, and  left the rest behind like discarded husks.

[00:00:59]Whatever left those marks is still somewhere in  this swamp. And it is actively hunting Burmese pythons. The one animal that for four decades had  nothing to fear. Over 50 lb and 13 ft long. But dead with its neck ripped apart, buried under  the brush. Somehow something killed this apex predator. So, who or what is doing this? We'll  find the answer. But first, we need to understand how Burmese pythons ended up here in the first  place. Burmese pythons were never native to the Everglades. They arrived through the exotic  pet trade, released or escaped into the wild, and then did something no one had anticipated.  They stayed, they bred, and they took over the entire ecosystem as if it had always been theirs.  Biologically, they are almost perfectly engineered for this. A fully grown python can reach  up to 4.8 m in length. After a large meal, its heart can expand by 40% to pump enough  blood for digestion. Its skin pattern blends so perfectly with the forest floor that even  experienced hunters can walk within a few steps without ever seeing them. They can lie motionless  for weeks, waiting before launching a sudden, powerful strike. But what makes them truly  dangerous is not their size. It is nothing in the Everglades has ever learned to fear them. In the  evolutionary memory of every native species here, Burmese pythons simply do not exist. And when you  have no fear of something, you do not run. You simply stand there and become its next meal.  After 40 years, the numbers are almost too devastating to say out loud. Raccoon populations  have plummeted by more than 99%. Oposums by 98%.

[00:02:54]bobcats by nearly 90%. 24 native mammal species  and 47 bird species have been confirmed as prey.

[00:03:02]The Everglades, America's largest natural water  filtration system and the source of clean water for more than 9 million people, is slowly losing  the living connections that keep the whole system functioning. Florida fought back hard. The python  elimination program was launched in 2017. To date, more than 14,000 pythons have been removed.  The annual python challenge has produced record results. 294 snakes caught in just 10 days  with a $10,000 prize and hundreds of hunters participating. And yet, the python population  shows no real decline because a single female can lay up to 100 eggs in one clutch. The math is  simple and merciless. Humans cannot win this fight by counting carcasses. Those 23 dead pythons found  that morning in Big Cyprus were not the result of any removal program. There were no hunters in the  area. No traps had been set. Whatever killed them had been doing so quietly, long before anyone  realized that something else had begun hunting the pythons. Dr. Elena Marsh had spent 7 years at  Big Cypress doing one thing, tracking pythons. not by counting individual snakes, but by monitoring  population density in fixed zones, using the same methods at the same time each year with the same  equipment. Her data was so consistent it bordered on boring. Every season, the numbers told the same  story. Pythons were holding steady or increasing.

[00:04:35]No exceptions, just a steady upward line across  seven full years. Then the eighth season began.

[00:04:43]In three specific monitoring zones inside Big  Cypress, detection rates started to drop. Not dramatically, not the kind of decline anyone  would immediately notice. Just a small arrow on the graph that began pointing downward instead of  up. The next season showed the same pattern. And the season after that, four consecutive seasons,  the same quiet decline in exactly the same three zones. In science, a small downward arrow in the  right place can matter more than any headline.

[00:05:15]Marsh spent 3 months systematically ruling out  every possible explanation. There were no new hunting programs targeting those areas. Human  pressure hadn't increased. There had been no natural disasters, no recorded diseases. One by  one, all the usual causes were eliminated. Yet, the question remained. Finally, she returned to  the camera trap archives. thousands of hours of footage from those exact zones. But this time, she  watched differently. She wasn't looking for the python's movement or behavior. She was watching  what was happening around them. And in that footage, she found three things, three species,  three behaviors that had never been documented in any scientific literature, quietly achieving what  the removal of 14,000 pythons had failed to do.

[00:06:04]We're going to examine each of them, starting with  the smallest and perhaps the most surprising. In those thousands of hours of footage, the first  thing Marsh saw made her rewind the clip twice, a bobcat. Before we go further, it's important  to understand what this animal represents in the Everglades. Bobcats are not apex predators here.  They are victims. In areas overrun by pythons, their populations have dropped by nearly 90%. They  hunt rabbits, rodents, and occasionally birds.

[00:06:35]They are solitary, maintain large territories,  and always avoid anything larger than themselves.

[00:06:42]An adult bobcat weighs between 7 and 14 kg. The  python it was approaching weighed 3 to four times that and could have constricted and killed  it in under a minute. No scientific paper, no field observation in the entire history of  North American wildlife research had ever recorded bobcats exerting meaningful predatory pressure on  large constrictor snakes. So why was the footage showing something that in theory should not  be happening? The bobcat stopped at the edge of the nest. It didn't pause out of curiosity and  then leave. It stood still and studied the scene carefully. the placement of the nest, the position  of the eggs, the angle of the female python's head. It was reading the terrain before moving in.  Then it entered. There was no chaos, no rush. It began taking the eggs one by one, methodically,  systematically. It was working. Then the female python turned back. The bobcat looked directly at  her and didn't run. Instead, it started moving in response to the python's movements, shifting  sideways, not backward, always staying just outside effective striking range. Its eyes never  leaving the snake's head. Every time the python changed direction, the bobcat adjusted with it.  It never let itself get cornered. It never gave the python the ideal angle to strike. The standoff  lasted for some time. In the end, the python gave up. It abandoned its own nest. Wildlife biologist  Ian Bartoik watched the footage and said plainly, "Nothing in the scientific literature could have  prepared anyone for what they were seeing." But the most important part wasn't the outcome. It was  the question that came next. Where did this bobcat learn to do this? Not from its parents. There was  no precedent in the species, not from instinct.

[00:08:40]Bobcats did not evolve alongside Burmese pythons  and have no genetic memory of them. It learned on its own through trial, observation of the python's  reactions, adjustment, and repeated attempts until it found what worked. And once it succeeded, other  bobcats in the area watched and began copying the behavior. By 2025, this behavior had escalated  significantly. Bobcats and Big Cyprus were no longer just raiding nests. They had begun actively  hunting adult pythons. 25lb cat killed and cashed a 52-lb python. One individual was recorded taking  down a python nearly 4 m long and twice its own body weight. Dragging the carcass into the brush  and returning to feed on it over several days.

[00:09:27]Destroying a nest wipes out an entire clutch.  Driving off a female interrupts the incubation cycle. And in natural conditions, that disruption  usually means the complete loss of the clutch.

[00:09:39]It was impressive. There was no denying it. But  bobcats are solitary hunters. They target one nest at a time, scattered across different areas. The  footage made that clear. And while this explained part of the decline in Marsh's data, it still  didn't explain the 23 dead pythons of various sizes found together in one location at Big  Cypress. Marsh kept watching the footage, and the next thing that appeared came from a direction no  one in the team had expected. Otter, if the bobcat was unexpected, otter weren't even on anyone's  radar. They appeared in no python management reports. They were never discussed in any  scientific conversation about population control.

[00:10:19]An aquatic species that hunts fish and travels  along waterways. While Burmese pythons are not aquatic animals, there was no reason to put these  two species in the same equation. But just like bobcats, otter in the Everglades have also been  victims of the python invasion. Their habitat has shrunk. Their young have been taken when separated  from the group. This was a species enduring python dominance, not one fighting back against it. Or  at least that's what everyone assumed. Footage from the waterway areas within the monitoring  zones told a different story. Groups of otter ranging from 4 to 12 individuals were moving along  the shorelines where pythons typically nest. Not passing through by chance, not random encounters,  they moved with purpose, stopping at the exact locations where pythons usually lay their eggs,  as if they already knew the terrain. When they spotted hatchling pythons swimming near the  surface, they didn't approach from one direction.

[00:11:18]The entire group attacked from multiple angles  at once, hurting the prey into an increasingly narrow space before pulling it underwater. This  was the same hering technique they use on fish.

[00:11:30]Now applied to much larger, slower prey.  Hatchling pythons, less than 60 cm long, are weak swimmers with no experience against this  kind of predator. The twisting, rolling bite otter use on fish generates far more force than their  size would suggest. But that wasn't even the most striking part. When they found an unguarded nest,  they didn't hesitate. No scouting, no pausing.

[00:11:55]The whole group moved in and went to work. 60 to  100 eggs in under 10 minutes. Completely gone.

[00:12:03]Florida's python elimination program with  hundreds of trained hunters, GPS tracking, and years of experience removes only a few dozen  adult pythons on its best days. One group of otter can wipe out an entire next generation of pythons  in 10 minutes with no budget, no organization, and no press releases. The population level  impact forced researchers to look at the numbers again. In areas with high otter density,  firstear survival of python hatchlings dropped below 15%. In areas with little to no otter  activity, that number ranged from 60 to 70%.

[00:12:42]That is the difference between a population that  is growing and one that is being worn down from the roots before it can even establish itself.  The otter were doing something human strategy had overlooked for 40 years. Instead of targeting  adult pythons that had already reproduced and contributed to the population, they were cutting  off the next generation before it could even exist. But this needs to be said clearly. Otter,  small-bodied and hunting in groups, are perfectly suited to handle hatchlings and eggs efficiently.  Their contribution to the population decline is real and measurable. However, adult pythons, large  snakes weighing tens of kilog, are completely beyond their capability. And the 23 dead pythons  found at Big Cyprus were not hatchlings. They were not eggs. Bobcats explained part of the story.  Otter explained more. But even combined, they still couldn't answer the original question. What  had killed 23 pythons of various sizes and left their bodies scattered across that one stretch of  ground? Marsh kept watching the footage. And then something appeared on the screen that made her  stop. What she saw wasn't on any list, and it was doing something no one, not even the scientist,  thought was possible. Here on the screen was a dark shape moving through the sawrass at 2:00 a.m.  It wasn't a bobcat. The movement was different. It wasn't an otter. This was on land. Marsh zoomed  in on the footage. And as the image sharpened, she realized she was looking at something no one  in the research team had ever put on their watch list. A coyote, an animal most Fidians see on the  side of the road and drive past without a second thought. A species that appeared in no python  management reports. An animal that physically at 11 to 16 kg had no business confronting the  largest snake in North America. But the footage that followed showed it wasn't confronting the  python headon. It was waiting. This was what the coyote had figured out. Something even researchers  who had spent decades studying pythons had never considered as a point of vulnerability.  Burmese pythons are nearly invincible, but not all the time. There are specific windows  in their biological cycle when their advantages in size and power nearly disappear. The first  window, after swallowing large prey, all blood flow is redirected to the digestive system. Muscle  strength drops significantly and the ability to constrict is almost gone for several hours.  The python lies still looking normal. But if attacked during this time, it cannot respond the  way it normally would. The second window, while incubating eggs, the female coils tightly around  the nest, focused entirely in one direction, creating a wide blind spot behind her that her  side-facing eyes cannot cover. The third window, during shedding, a membrane covers the eyes,  reducing vision to nearly zero for several days.

[00:15:46]The python moves slowly, reacts slowly, and relies  almost entirely on smell to navigate. The coyotes had learned to recognize all three of these  windows. And from that knowledge, they developed a technique that forensic analysis later helped  researchers fully understand. They approached from a 30 to 45° angle behind the python's head,  precisely in the blind spot created by the snake's side vision. A single bite to the skull, then  immediate retreat before the python can reorient.

[00:16:18]The brain is the most nutrient-dense part of the  python's body. That's why they take only the head.

[00:16:24]Not because the rest isn't edible, but because it  offers the highest reward for the shortest time spent in danger. In take what you need, disappear.  That is why the 23 dead pythons found at Big Cypress looked almost completely intact, except  for one thing. They were missing their heads.

[00:16:42]But here's what's truly remarkable. The coyotes in  Florida did not bring this behavior with them from somewhere else. No coyote population anywhere in  the world has ever been recorded hunting pythons this way before. This was something invented  right here by individuals who tried, failed, adjusted, and eventually found a method that  worked. Then the method began to spread. One individual succeeded. Others watched. They copied.  They refined. They tried again. Not through genes, not through instinct, but through watching each  other and learning. Scientists call this cultural transmission, the passing of knowledge and  behavior in wild animals. Crows learn to drop nuts onto roads to crack them open, and that behavior  spreads from one bird to another in the same area.

[00:17:33]Orcas learn to deliberately beach themselves to  hunt seals, then teach it to their calves across generations. Chimpanzees pass on the technique  of using sticks to fish for termites, a tool that becomes shared knowledge within the community. The  coyotes in Big Cyprus were doing the same thing with the prey species no one thought they could  possibly reach. The evidence was right there in the data. The number of headless python carcasses  increased steadily from 2021 to 2023. Not a sudden spike, but a smooth continuous upward curve.  That is not the curve of random chance. That is the curve of knowledge being shared and refined  within a community. Now, put all three together.

[00:18:18]Bobcats attack nests, destroying entire clutches,  driving off mothers, and gradually learning to take down adults as well. Otter wipe out the  next generation before it can even swim on its own. 60 to 100 eggs gone in under 10 minutes.  Coyotes wait for precise biological weak points, approach from the blind spot, take only what they  need, and vanish without a trace. Three layers: eggs, hatchlings, adults. There is no stage in  the Burmese python's life cycle that at least one of these three species isn't targeting. And no  one planned any of this. There was no coordination between bobcats, otter, and coyotes. No signals,  no shared strategy. Just three species, each discovering its own solution that together created  something 40 years of organized human effort had failed to achieve. That is the most astonishing  part of this entire story. Marsh looked back at their own charts. Four consecutive seasons, three  monitoring zones, the same steady downward trend.

[00:19:23]a small arrow that kept pointing down without  wavering. And for the first time in 7 years of working here, she understood why. It wasn't  because humans had done anything more. It wasn't the weather. It wasn't a new program. It wasn't  any factor that normally has a box to check in a scientific report. It was because three native  species, each in its own way in the same area during the same period, had figured out how to  do what 40 years of organized human effort had failed to achieve. This was the first time in 40  years that the Burmese python population in parts of Big Cyprus showed real signs of decline,  not from outside pressure, but from forces rising within the ecosystem itself. But this  needs to be said clearly. This is not victory.

[00:20:15]The python population across the Everglades  is still estimated between 100,000 and 300,000 individuals. Their reproductive capacity remains  unchanged. A single female can still lay up to 100 eggs in one clutch. The declining zones inside  Big Cypress represent only a small fraction of the species total range. Human removal programs  must not only continue, they need to expand.

[00:20:41]Yet something fundamental has changed and it  cannot be ignored. For the first time in 40 years, this ecosystem is no longer just enduring. It is  responding. And three species with no budgets, no strategic plans, and no press releases are  doing it more effectively than any initiative humans have ever launched here. This raises an  uncomfortable question for everyone who studies and manages damaged ecosystems. If we spent  less time counting what we can remove and more time observing what is already happening inside  the system, would we have noticed this earlier?

[00:21:16]Or has the answer been here all along? We just  weren't looking in the right place. Three species, three different approaches and an ecosystem  doing something no one planned for it to do.

[00:21:27]Bobcats are still learning. Otter are  still clearing out nest after nest.

[00:21:33]Coyotes are still moving through the darkness  at 2:00 a.m. and their knowledge continues to spread through the community in ways no camera  can fully capture. The question is not whether the Everglades can save itself. The question is how  many other ecosystems are quietly doing the same thing right now that we simply haven't noticed  because no one has looked in the right place yet.

[00:21:56]If this video changed the way you see  what's happening in the Everglades, share it with someone who needs to know and  leave your thoughts in the comments below.

[00:22:04]Thanks so much for watching until the end. If you  liked the video, please hit like and subscribe to World Enigma. It really helps me keep making  more content like this. See you in the next one.