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Fossil Frank has a hypothesis - inspired by certain shells taken from deep in a limestone quarry abutting the Everglades - that a great tsunami hit Florida about two million years ago. It happened in the evening - and he can prove it. More of this later. Before Frank Perillo became Fossil Frank he was an unhappy mechanic. He hated every day he lay on his back in Ketcham's garage. Winter days were worst, because his hands turned to meat from the cold and the lacquer thinners he used to wash himself. When he jacked up cars, the ice on...

Two huge Burmese pythons were caught and killed recently, one by a homeowner in Missouri’s rural Warren County, and the other by a researcher in Florida’s Shark Valley. Burmese pythons are considered to be a highly invasive species across the American Southeast, especially in Everglades National Park, where the slithery creatures have started to colonize. Experts say the snakes threaten native wildlife species like ground-nesting birds, but it seems that the reptiles also have an appetite for domestic animals as well. For days, a massive 14-foot python had stalked a community near Jonesburg, until residents took matters into their own...

This python, captured in Shark Valley, in Everglades National Park, may be the second-largest python ever caught in Florida. USGS ======================================================================================================================== A python researcher working in Everglades National Park has captured what may be the second-largest Burmese python in the state of Florida, CBS Miami reports. The snake was captured on July 9 in the park's Shark Valley and was documented at 18 feet 3 inches long. It's just 4 inches shy of the state's record 18 foot 7 inch python caught in Miami-Dade, CBS notes. Whether it's indeed the second-largest, officially, remains unclear, due to differences in record-keeping in...

Everglades National Park, a world-renowned wetland in southern Florida, once abounded with rabbits, raccoons, muskrats, and other small mammals. But roughly 15 years ago, these species started to become scarce. About the same time, biologists noticed a boom in the population of a predator that had invaded the 64,238-hectare park: the Burmese python. Now, an experiment adds to the evidence that the pythons, which grow up to 5 meters long, are to blame for the collapse of the mammals' populations. “There’s no question that this is an environmental disaster,” says J. D. Willson of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, who...

Florida man who calls himself the "Alligator Whisperer" was arrested after officials received complaints that he was swimming with and kissing gators in the Everglades, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife. FWC officials had been tracking posts on Hal Kreitman's Facebook page, where they found photos of him kissing, caressing and swimming with alligators, promising others they could do the same if they paid $250 to participate in an "Alligator Experience," KeysInfoNet reports.

Privately operated airboats, icons of the Gladesmen culture of the Everglades, will be dwindling in number because the Park Service isn’t granting any new licenses.

A Florida man who went hunting for pythons in Florida’s Everglades returned instead with a mysterious treasure: an antique, diamond-studded gold medallion that could date back to the 17th century. How the handmade, penny-sized amulet got there is a riddle. One theory is it could have been aboard a ValuJet plane that crashed nearby in May 1996 – or that perhaps it was part of the debris field from an Eastern Airlines crash in the same area in 1972. The fact that it is partially melted on one side could support that idea. But wherever it came from, Mark Rubinstein,...

The chance to traipse through Florida's Everglades in search of wild pythons up to 15 feet long has attracted nearly 700 thrill-seekers from throughout the county. The Sunshine State is offering cash prizes in the month-long “Python Challenge,” which begins tomorrow and is aimed at helping to control the exploding population of the non-native Burmese pythons, which have devastated Florida's eco-system. Anyone is eligible for the hunt ... cash prizes of up to $1,500 will be given to hunters who catch the largest and most pythons. The pythons that have nearly eradicated entire native species such as deer, bobcats and...

Gator bites off hand of Everglades airboat captain EVERGLADES CITY — A 63-year-old airboat captain lost his left hand when an alligator bit it off, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The victim’s name is Wallace Weatherholt of Captain Doug's Everglades Tours on State Road 29. FWC officials said a criminal investigation is pending. Feeding alligators is a second-degree misdemeanor. POSTED EARLIER An Everglades City airboat captain lost his hand Tuesday afternoon when an alligator bit it off, according to a state wildlife official. The airboat captain was taken to a Naples hospital following the attack, said...

During Vice President Joe Biden's campaign event at the Everglades, he referred to the national park as the 'Ever-gators.' "Back in '28 when it was built, they didn't realize that they effectivly created a dam through half of the Ever-gators - through half of the Everglades - cutting off the water supply that these wetlands depend upon," Biden said. Biden told the crowd that his Secret Service agent would "shoot the alligator" if he ended up in a wrestling match with one.

Burmese pythons have virtually wiped out raccoons, marsh rabbits, opossums and other once-common mammals in the southern region of Everglades National Park, according to a nine-year study that shows the snakes' devastating impact on the park's wildlife. The loss of so many significant species from part of the park is certain to have significant repercussions throughout the food web, said Michael Dorcas, lead author of the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For the first time, scientists have put numbers to the toll Burmese pythons have had on native wildlife in the Everglades. But one word can sum it up: carnage. In the decade since the giant constrictors started showing up in significant numbers, mammals once among the most common in Everglades National Park have declined dramatically, according to a study published online Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.The study, based on night field surveys conducted over 10 years, found three animals had all but disappeared. Opossum sightings fell 98.9 percent. Raccoons — once so abundant park managers warned...

Record freezes and a fearsome drought have failed to kill off the Burmese pythons that have colonized the Everglades. Six of the non-native, constricting snakes were found last week in sections of the Everglades in which they had not turned up before, including an area north of Alligator Alley, according to the South Florida Water Management District. This further dashed hopes by scientists that the past winter's cold weather could kill off the snakes, which are native to the warmer climate of southern Asia.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rallied Everglades restoration workers Friday at a groundbreaking ceremony for a piece of the massive effort in rural Collier County. The ceremony deep in the Picayune Strand State Forest between U.S. 41 and Interstate 75 marked the start of work on a $79 million pump station along the Faka Union Canal. The pump is the largest of three that are part of a plan to return natural water flows to 55,000 acres of the forest where developers once planned a huge subdivision. The restoration also will tear out 260 miles of roads and plug 48 miles...

In May 2008, archaeologists began the tedious task of exhuming the remains of Native Americans at a remote site south of Lake Okeechobee and reburying them at another remote site, to make way for a man-made wetland needed to restore the Everglades. [snip] But the more the archaeologists dug, the more they found. After nearly two years, the tribes learned that what they'd been told were some teeth and bones turned out to be partial remains of 56 men, women and children moved from an ancient burial ground so significant that it would have been eligible for listing on the...

With all the deadly panthers, pythons and gators roaming the Everglades, most people might not think of making a career out of splashing through the swamp. Ed Woods is not most people. Woods and his crew are the stars of a new National Geographic show called "Swamp Men," which premieres on Nat Geo Wild tonight at 10 p.m. The Swamp Men lead their Billie Swamp Safari tours through Big Cypress Swamp, deep in the Everglades on Seminole Indian tribe ground. Their mission: "patrol the land, relocate animals from dangerous situations and rescue animals in need." The animals, about 1,600 in...

At Everglades National Park, managers struggle to control vultures' appetites for the rubber and plastic on visitors' vehicles.Behind her counter in the gift shop at Anhinga Trail, the first and most popular tourist stop in Everglades National Park, Linda Hyde keeps a secret weapon against forbidding creatures that spent much of the winter lurking in the parking lot and preying on random visitors and staffers. Not pythons, gators, panthers or even infamously blood-thirsty mosquitoes. Vultures. Some of the big black birds, known primarily for dining on the dead and decaying, also have developed an appetite for something unusual: car parts....

Time to put those snake-stalking skills to work. State wildlife officials have created a special python hunting season to try to stop the spread of the nonnative snakes throughout the Everglades and the hunting begins today. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says anyone with a hunting license who pays a $26 permit fee can kill the reptiles from today to April 17 on state-managed lands around the Everglades in South Florida. The season is open for Burmese and Indian pythons, African rock pythons, green anacondas and Nile monitor lizards. Thousands of the nonnative Burmese pythons are believed to...

Thousands of 10-foot pythons roam the Florida Everglades, menacing man and beast alike. Catharine Skipp prepares to join the historic hunting expedition designed to stamp them out. There are giant beasts stalking South Florida. Seriously: Burmese Pythons that can grow as long as a Winnebago and have been known to swallow German shepherds who take a wrong turn. There are an estimated 30,000 of them, slithering through Miami and surrounding counties. The reptiles wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. They can also kill people. Just last year, an 8½-foot family pet Burmese escaped its cage and strangled a 2-year-old girl...

Vultures circled over Everglades National Park's Anhinga Trail, where thousands of dead non-native fish floated in the marshes. About half the Burmese pythons found in the park in the past few weeks were dead. Dead iguanas have dropped from trees onto patios across South Florida. And in western Miami-Dade County, three African rock pythons — powerful constrictors that can kill people — have turned up dead. Although South Florida's warm, moist climate has nurtured a vast range of non-native plants and animals, a cold snap last month reminded these unwanted guests they're not in Burma or Ecuador anymore. Temperatures that...