Friday, April 6, 2012
Pythons Eating Rare Bird Eggs Pose Threat
Summary: Burmese pythons are creating problems in Florida. Now they’re not only eating birds, but the birds’ eggs as well! This isn’t really productive news to me because as soon as I thought about it, I realized that if the mother is gone, the babies won’t survive. Even if, by some miracle they hatch without the warmth of their mother, she’s not able to feed them. Thus, they die of starvation. (Wow, this is dark stuff.) Anyway, these pythons are able to eat the eggs whole. After the egg is completely in its body, the python flexes its body and crushes the egg, getting the nourishment from inside the shell. It then regurgitates the shell and moves on. (Again, dark stuff.) Scientists found the proof in two snakes they caught in an area where guineafowl and their nests resided. One python coughed up 10 egg shells (It was male) while the other only had two (This one was female.)
Critique: I think snakes are cool. Like bees and sometimes sharks, they’ll leave you alone if you do the same. If you poke it with a stick, of course it will get mad and attack, but if you back away slowly and NOT scream and run, you won’t seem like prey or worse: an enemy. Now that I know they may in fact be the cause of a bug Blitzkrieg in the forseeable future, I'm more wary. This is a different kind of dangerous, folks. If bugs overpopulate the world, we can't just back away slowly. We have to hide underground and pray they don't find us. (More dark stuff! Good Lord, I wouldn't have done this article if I knew it would be this eerie to write about!)
Impact: Well, all we need to picture is the onslaught of insects that would be the result of no more birds. Ew. While I’m sure bug researchers are thrilled to hear this, the rest of us would rather not get a fatal disease and die. Bugs really aren’t that bad if they’re not everywhere. If birds become less in number, however, we’re in trouble. The more bugs that carry disease, the more likely it is we’ll be the host of the illness next. As for me, myself personally, bugs already scare/gross the crap out of me – if I have to worry about diseases along with their creepiness, mark my words, I’ll go insane.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120405224845.htm
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As they say in The Lion King, "It's the circle of life." Pythons have to eat too. However, my question is a little different. What are BURMESE pythons doing in Florida? Were they smuggled there as exotic pets and then released when the owners couldn't take care for them or maybe they just escaped? I know that there are populations of wild iguanas in the US because they've been released when their owners couldn't care for them. People need to quit moving exotic animals around. There is a reason why smuggling them is illegal. They get loose in the environment and cause problems. Now we've got this surplus amount of bugs. This was not supposed to happen. There is a reason why Burmese pythons are not native to Florida. Lesson to the story: people, quit smuggling animals!
ReplyDeleteI have to say, animals are dieing out from humans more than snakes. Plus we have enough bug spray to go around thus, even with a bug population growing from lack of birds, we can conquer them even if Obama is president! Im sorry too because people want to save the whales more than birds. Especially when we have a whole fast food restaurant that sells cooked bird (KFC).
ReplyDeleteSo the other day, i saw a garden snake that probably eats small rats and i was calling it to me like i call my dog Jefferey to me. It was so funny. Also one of the least animals id want to be if i turned into one would be the snake. I hate eating eggs with a passion as you know too well and wouldn't like eating them to survive or even shed my skin that is disgusting!!