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this the insatiable appetite of the invading Burmese python It is causing Florida’s mammal and bird populations to decline. With little natural competition to control the great snake’s numbers, the situation seems hopeless. But new observations suggest that the lynx, a wildcat native to Florida, can help.
A team of ecologist recently collected evidence of a lynx eating python eggs at Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve and reported their findings last month. journal Ecology and Evolution. It’s hard to tell if this individual cat more adventurous than the average lynxhowever, he proposes a possible way in which the python’s reproduction could be limited – by eating the unhatched young of other animals.
The event was recorded by a motion-sensitive camera that a team led by Andrea Currylow, an ecologist at the US Geological Survey, placed near the nest of a large female Burmese python in June 2021. The camera was placed to better understand the reproductive biology of these gigantic snakes. A few hours after installation, the snake slid away and the camera captured footage of a lynx arriving and eating python eggs in the early evening.
Dr. “We’re completely down,” Currylow said. “We didn’t know these snakes’ nests were being looted.”
It seems that the cat has decided that she likes what she finds better because she’s been back three times that night for another snack. The next morning the lynx returned to bury the uneaten eggs for consumption at a later date. That evening the lynx returned again, but this time the python returned to its nest. Weighing around 20 pounds, the cat was clearly aware that the 115-pound python posed a serious threat, and instead of trying to eat more eggs, it wandered around the nest for a few minutes at a safe distance before leaving.
The next night, the camera took a picture of the two predators facing each other. Apparently, the lynx felt the clutch was worth fighting for because it came back in the morning and made the python heavy enough to launch an attack. The strike that missed the cat triggered the cameras. Likewise, the lynx counterattacked as it slapped its claws on the huge reptile.
It’s unclear exactly how the duel ended, but when researchers arrived that evening to retrieve the camera, they found the snake sitting in a heavily damaged nest.
Dr. “We thought the snake somehow caused the damage by crushing its own eggs,” Currylow said, “but then we saw the photos and it was incredible.”
The researchers removed the snake and examined the nest in detail. They found that 42 eggs were destroyed and 22 were damaged but potentially viable. They collected and incubated these eggs. None of them hatched.
While it is possible that this interaction was just an isolated event, it is also possible that native species began to react to the python’s presence.
“Most species of cats adapt their diets to what’s available, so lynxes predating on python eggs aren’t actually all that surprising,” said Mathias Tobler, a wildlife ecologist with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
Reptile eggs are already part of the Florida bobcat diet. Bobcats are known to eat sea turtle eggs, and these may have similarities to python eggs.
Dr. “Egg-hunting in cats is truly a learned behavior,” Tobler said. “Once some individuals understand how to hunt python eggs, they can potentially do so quite regularly.”
Of course, the biggest difference between python nests and sea turtle nests is that snake nests are usually sheltered. However, Dr. Currylow also points out that female pythons often go without food until their eggs are about to hatch. This may be the main reason why Bobcat survived his adventure.
Whether these cats will be able to eat enough eggs to turn the tide against a python invasion remains to be seen.
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