A word of warning: If you’re afraid of snakes or blood-sucking insects, then this video showing a giant python being eaten alive by hundreds of ticks will almost assuredly give you the creeps. It’s worth watching anyway.
Mike Kimmel, a nuisance wildlife trapper who’s better known as the Python Cowboy, recorded the video recently while he was out with clients on a guided python hunt in South Florida. The roughly 10-minute clip was uploaded to YouTube on Aug. 1, and it recaps an intense night of snake hunting in the Everglades. The real highlight of the hunt is when Kimmel’s tracking dog, Otto, finds a huge Burmese python that’s absolutely covered in ticks.
“Probably the worst I’ve ever seen,” Kimmel writes in the video’s description, referring to the sheer number of engorged ticks they found on the snake. “We probably did this girl a favor by taking her out.”
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The nightmarish discovery comes as Otto works ahead of the hunters and sniffs out the python that’s hiding in the sawgrass. “Good dog bubba,” Kimmel tells his dog around the four-minute mark as he follows Otto’s nose and sees just a sliver of a Burmese python buried in the thick brush. It turns out to be a big female that’s guarding its nest, and the hunters walk around the area to figure out their best approach. The snake hisses as they dig through the grass to try and find the snake’s head. That’s when Kimmel sees the hundreds of fat ticks already latched onto it. Some are as big as grapes.
“That’s gonna be a juicy grab for somebody,” a man jokes off camera.
As the hunters move around the brush to get a good angle on the snake, Kimmel points out that the female is guarding a clutch of eggs and unwilling to leave its nest. But the snake is also exhausted from all the ticks that are feeding on it and sapping its energy. When one of the hunters grabs it near the back of its head, the python uncoils without putting up much of a fight, revealing the 17 eggs in its nest.
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“The first thing I noticed after the eggs was how this python was just covered in ticks like I have never seen,” Kimmel says, recapping the footage toward the end of the video. “This snake was just being chewed to pieces. It had well over a hundred ticks on it, probably hundreds.”
After humanely killing the snake (which happens offscreen), the hunters remove the python eggs from the nest, doing their part to chip away at the Everglades’ python problem.
Kimmel is one of many government-approved contractors across the state who specialize in hunting pythons and can get paid through incentive programs to kill as many of the snakes as possible. A large number of these snake hunters, along with python enthusiasts from all over the country, will gather this week in South Florida to compete in the Florida Python Challenge.
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The snake-hunting competition is a team event that will run from just after midnight on Aug. 9 to 5 p.m. on August 18. Interested participants must complete an online training course and be aware of all contest rules, including prohibitions on firearms and the use of hunting dogs. Prizes will be awarded in several categories, including the longest Burmese python caught, and whichever team catches the most snakes wins the ultimate grand prize of $10,000.