The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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July 6, 2006

Python on lam in southwest Joplin

By Jeff Lehr

Globe Staff Writer

A large albino Burmese python is on the loose in the Greenwood area southwest of Joplin.

Its owner told the Newton County Sheriff's Department that the missing snake is almost 20 feet long and weighs about 100 pounds.

The yellow-and-white patterned constrictor reportedly escaped from a glass, aquarium-type container in the back yard of its owner on Bonnie Lane.

"It's a pretty good-sized snake, so we don't want anyone coming across it not being aware of it," Chief Deputy Chris Jennings said Wednesday afternoon.

He said the owner, who has had the python about eight years, reported it missing on Wednesday and has been informing all his neighbors.

The owner maintains that the snake has never been aggressive in the past, Jennings said. But the potential for danger to people or their pets and livestock is inherent in the species, according to Jennings and two local snake experts.

"We're just concerned about it getting hungry," Jennings said.

Anyone who comes across the python is advised to contact the Newton County Sheriff's Department at (417) 451-8300, authorities said. Jennings said people should not try to capture the snake on their own.

Pythons in the wild eat mice, rats, amphibians, lizards, other snakes, birds and various mammals. In captivity, they frequently are fed rats, mice, rabbits, pigs and goats. The owner of the missing python told the Sheriff's Department that this one has been fed mice and rats all its life.

The Burmese python is not venomous. It kills by coiling around its prey, squeezing the breath out of it and causing the prey's blood vessels to explode from constriction of the coils. The snake generally swallows its prey whole with hinged jaws that are capable of consuming an animal four to five times the size of the snake's head.

"Even domestic dogs and cats would be fair game for a snake that size," said Mike Crocker, superintendent of the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield.

Crocker said a Burmese python normally will not grab a human, but there is no guarantee. He said basic precautions need to be taken by people who are around the snakes. Matters can take turns for the worse with such snakes, even for owners who have kept them as pets all their lives, he said.

A Burmese python killed its owner in St. Louis in the 1980s, Crocker said.

"Usually, what happens is they'll grab you at feeding time," he said. "They smell a rabbit or whatever you're feeding them, and aren't smart enough to know you're not what they're smelling."

Both Crocker and Ron McCoy, co-owner of Reptile World Zoo on Kodiak Road in Newton County, are somewhat skeptical of the reported length of the missing python.

Twenty feet is about the maximum length the species reaches. But 20-foot pythons usually top 200 pounds at a minimum, they said.

Crocker said the Springfield zoo has two Burmese pythons in the 12- to 14-foot range that weigh around 100 pounds each. McCoy said his walk-through zoo has a 15-foot Burmese python that weighs 230 pounds, and graduated from eating mice and rats to 90 pounds of rabbits per month quite a while ago.

McCoy said people, even owners, frequently overestimate the true length of snakes. But even if it is just a 10-foot python that weighs 100 pounds, it would be capable of killing a person, he said.

Jennings said the owner, who was not being identified by authorities, believes he must have forgotten to latch the container in which the python was being kept.

Jennings said the Sheriff's Department may have to kill the python if it is spotted by someone. He said the owner would be contacted, and recapturing the snake would be considered as an option, but the safety of people, pets and livestock would be the primary concern.

Crocker said it is possible that the snake may never be seen again. He said it probably could survive in the wild in Missouri for a few months, but it could never survive a winter here as a temperate-climate snake.

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