Overview

• Biologists in Big Cypress National Preserve observed a large female Burmese python after a night near 49°F and found a minimally digested white-tailed deer it had regurgitated nearby.
• The event was recorded during a year-long project tracking digestion in large female pythons to study interactions with deer and was published in Ecology and Evolution.
• Researchers report that low temperatures can halt an ectotherm’s digestion, allowing prey to decompose and prompting regurgitation to avoid infection from microbial growth.
• The deer the python had ingested weighed about 77 pounds, roughly two-thirds of the snake’s mass, and losing such a rare, energy-rich meal could reduce an individual’s reproductive output.
• Scientists link pythons to multi-year deer declines with implications for Florida panthers, and note that cold snaps and ongoing control efforts, including incentives and AI-equipped decoy rabbits, may expose vulnerabilities in the invasive population.