Footage of giant python crossing Florida road stirs emotions

A Florida weatherman has shared footage of a massive python slithering across a highway, generating an array of responses.

A Florida weatherman has shared footage of an enormous Burmese python slithering across a highway, generating an array of responses.

“MASSIVE FLORIDA SNAKE!” WINK meteorologist Matt Devitt wrote on Facebook. “Check out the size of this 15+ foot python crossing the road recently in Everglades National Park. Nope!”

The soundless footage, captured by Kym Clark, shows the snake nearly spanning the width of the road before finding refuge in the wetlands.

Florida is home to thousands of invasive pythons, unfortunately, but it’s rare to encounter a snake this large in broad daylight.

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Devitt’s post generated nearly 3,000 comments, including these top observations:

–“Really sad that people released these snakes after they got too big to be a pet. To begin with, they aren’t native to North America and should never have been brought here. Now they have multiplied and are killing FL deer, panthers… whatever they can and threatening those populations.”

–“We’re overrun with them in the Everglades. I think you have to have a license to catch them. They’re eating the natural habitat animals, even alligators.”

–“Had I seen it I would have run it over until it was dead. I hate snakes even though I know in my head that there is a real purpose for them I don’t like them.”

The most popular comment, however, was this: “The worst snake I’ve ever dealt with was human.”

Many were sympathetic, typing responses such as “No truer words spoken” and “You got that right.”

Pythons are literally feasting on native wildlife and Florida has launched several programs intended to remove the reptiles and slow their spread in and beyond the Everglades ecosystem.

Last June biologists captured what they said was the heaviest python they’ve encountered. The pregnant snake – containing 122 eggs – weighed 215 pounds and measured 18 feet.

She had consumed what was believed to be an entire white-tailed deer as her last meal.