USGS Release: USGS Maps Show Potential Non-Native Python Habitat Along Three U.S. Coasts (2/20/2008 10:45:00 AM)

So much for it being just a Florida problem.

It's pretty upsetting to read articles like that, people need to take responsibility for their purchases

I would have to wonder what they are using for their criteria. For instance in the current map they show almost all of Oklahoma as acceptable habitat!
In the summer maybe!
They sure wouldn't last in our winters!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

They would hibernate? Also the second map showed increased potential habitat due to global warming.

I could see it under a dramatic climate change.
However Burmese have a propensity for respiratory infections anyway. Since we have days in the teens and nights in the single digits and snow and Ice I just have a hard time accepting that.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

The southern states don't get that cold. Please don't be too quick to dismiss this. This subject is real. According to the article, Burms are not fragile animals. They can adapt. Adaption is more likely when spread over a couple of generations!
Oh, Boy. I guess this is just another of those subjects that no one wants to hear!

I don't think anyone is just dismissing the information. I think that the questions being raised are valid in the point that just what are the criteria for the climate zones? Just a question, not dismissing the issue, just something to add to the discussion.

I agree with Sav. People really need to start thinking about the long road, and how they are going to be able to take care of their animals for their entire lives. And if something comes up they need to get a set of balls and be responsible in making sure the animal has a stable and capable home to go to.

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I am not dismissing the entire thing only questioning part of it. The more extreme south I can understand. The temperatures are a little more moderate.
I can't speak to other areas, only Oklahoma. I have lived here a long time and just can't see a tropical reptile survivng one of our winters. It gets pretty darned cold here.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Last night we talked about this in my environmental science class... aparently they're moving west at a rate of about 100 miles per year.

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck

I live in SC, and I know of several reported "wild" pythons in my area, but our winters are even pushing it, below the Charleston Bump maybe, but not much farther north.

Studying evolution is a fascination of mine, but you have to look at factors involved in evolution, animals don't just evolve for nothing, there has to be a stress of some kind. They may move west, but north is MUCH harder.

Evolution occurs for only one reason, necessity, evolutionary biologist will argue, but bottom line, nature follows a code of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it." If a mutation is not advantageous it won't propagate, and the species won't evolve. All that will happen is there will be a genetic "freak" that has a 70% less of a chance of reproducing and 50% less of a chance of producing viable offspring. Even if there is an off chance that a super python takes root and starts to move north quickly, it has to produce a breeding colony, this colony must then migrate to meet another colony and zig zag its way up through pocket colonies.

I am not ruing out the possibility of that migration happening, I am however very skeptical of the time-line most people, scientist included put on it. I would love to be able to go out herping and find a huge python and several babies or to go out and find pregnant females, but I am reasonably sure that will take quite a bit of travel time for me for a long time to come.

Global warming is so drastically misunderstood it is the scapegoat for everything. One day the media will allow a good credible non-doomsday and non-lax scientist come forward and explain what is actually known which is somewhere in the middle.

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“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny…'"
- Isaac Asimov



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