First of all, kudos to MonsterQuest for fixing the video player on their website.  It's nice to be able to catch up to the show on the official website, instead of having to track episodes down on YouTube.  If there's something weird about the sound on the commercial breaks, so be it.

"Giant Pythons in America" is one of the most delicious MonsterQuest episodes to date.  The show establishes itself right out of the gate by using the phrase "slithering menace" to describe escaped Burmese pythons.

There is no question that large snakes like the Burmese python are dangerous.  They can easily reach 20 feet and 300 pounds, at which size they typically feed on deer, alligators, and smaller pythons.  But they are also known to attack children and pets, particularly in the fringe areas of Florida where human civilization runs up against the edges of canals and swamps.

Released pets had been filling south Florida for years before Hurricane Andrew came along.  But that hurricane released a tremendous number of tropical animals into the Florida ecosystem.  As one of the experts points out, Andrew travelled right through "the warehouse area where most of the tropical pets coming into the United States are kept."  

Burmese pythons in particular have found south Florida to their liking.  The show breathlessly reports that the snakes are "spreading north," and if by "north" you mean "Tampa," then this is correct.  The snakes have been verified as breeding, which means that Florida may never be able to rid itself of Burmese pythons.

Although the Burmese python is surprisingly invasive, "one of the most adaptable snake species," one has to raise an eyebrow at the claim of one biologist interviewed who says that the feral snakes could spread as far north as Washington D.C. with the onset of climate change.

Another specter raised by the show is the potential for hybridization.  For example, King cobras were also released by Hurricane Andrew, and can be found in the same regions of south Florida as Burmese pythons.  What if - what if, now - the King cobras hybridized with the Burmese pythons?  To create a kind of super snake, with the python's size and constriction ability, PLUS the King cobra's venom?

OMG WE WOULD ALL DIE.

Luckily MonsterQuest quashes this fear almost immediately, by interviewing biologists who point out that not only would that never happen, but it never could happen either.  Phew!

Next, following up on the capture of a nine foot python in Central Park in 2007, MonsterQuest sends a guy to Central Park to hunt pythons.  Needless to say, he mostly finds rats, which he duly points out are the python's favorite food.  He also travels down into the sewer system, where pythons could theoretically overwinter.

Although pythons escape or are released by their owners, there has never been any proof that pythons are more than the occasional brief visitor to the streets of NYC.  Unsurprisingly, the MonsterQuest team does not find any pythons in Central Park.  But it's awfully fun to watch them try.

Creative Commons-licensed photo courtesy of Flickr user Joffley