Terrifying video footage captured the moment an alligator was seen dragging a massive python through the water in the Florida Everglades.
Kelly Alvarez, an Everglades National Park tour guide, was able to film the alligator, who is nicknamed ‘Godzilla’, as it held a massive dead Burmese python in its jaws and swam with it along the surface of the murky waters on Thanksgiving Day.
‘I have seen many alligators eating pythons out here,’ Alvarez told USA Today. ‘I have never, ever, ever seen a python that large.’
In normal fashion, Alvarez was giving her usual tour through Everglades National Park – the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States – on the seemingly normal holiday morning.
While the group was taking in the breathtaking water views from the observation tower at Shark Valley – the highest elevation a visitor can reach by foot in the entire park – a scream from one of the children stopped Alvarez in her tracks.
‘I thought it was a log floating on the surface of water or something like that,’ Alvarez said. ‘Then I noticed the alligator moving it.’
She looked around at the surrounding waters and recognized the reptile informally known as Godzilla – an estimated 10-12 foot long alligator who frequently takes up sun-bathing near the tower.
But to her disbelief, Godzilla was carrying an unexpected meal in its mouth – a mammoth-sized python that appeared to be nearly twice the gator’s length.
The moment an alligator was seen dragging a dead, mammoth-sized Burmese python in its jaw while gliding across the waters of the Florida Everglades was captured on terrifying video footage
Kelly Alvarez, an Everglades National Park tour guide, was giving her usual tour from the observation tower at Shark Valley – the highest elevation a visitor can reach by foot in the entire park – on Thanksgiving Day when a scream from one of the children alerted her to the shocking sight
Burmese pythons are typically found across more than a thousand square miles of South Florida, including Everglades National Park – the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States
Alvarez then began filming from her position in the tower as the alligator slithered through the surface of the water – a bloated snake with its ends missing trailing along with it.
‘It’s huge,’ someone was heard saying in the video. ‘That’s a really, really big python.’
‘That’s so gnarly!’ Alvarez added.
Another tour guide chimed in and said: ‘You know it’s something serious when it’s something we haven’t seen before.’
Burmese pythons are considered one of the largest snakes in the world – averaging between 10 and 16 feet long as an adult, according to the University of Florida.
In July of 2023, a group of python hunters caught the longest one ever measured in the waters of the Big Cypress National Preserve in eastern Collier County, The Palm Beach Post reported.
It measured out to a shocking 19 feet long.
A year before that, biologists at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida captured a whopping 18 foot, 215-pound female python – making their catch the heaviest one ever recorded.
Alvarez thought it was a floating log at first glance, but then she realized that it was a python that appeared to be nearly twice the gator’s length, which she estimated to be at least 10 feet long
The pythons pose a threat to native wildlife as an invasive species – wreaking havoc to Florida’s ecosystem as they eat nearly everything in their path and have very few predators
In July of 2023, a group of python hunters caught the longest python ever measured in the waters of the Big Cypress National Preserve – measuring at a whopping 19 feet long
But Thanksgiving’s shocking find may have taken the cake for the longest python ever seen, considering it looked colossal next to the already-giant gator.
Godzilla, who is estimated to be at minimum 10 feet long, was captured holding the snake in its jaw partway down its puffy body – leaving it to float along either side.
Alvarez estimated that the python had to be at least 20 feet long, which would ultimately make it one of the largest snakes ever found in the Everglades, USA Today reported.
She later explained that the reasoning for the python being bloated may have to do with the way alligators handle their prey.
Gators typically hold on to large prey for a couple of weeks while it rots to make it easier and more efficient for them to break apart.
And as the snake lacks any oxygen and starts to decompose, its body expels gases like methane and hydrogen sulfide – causing its abdomen to swell.
Burmese pythons are typically found across more than a thousand square miles of South Florida, including Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve and Collier-Seminole State Park, The Palm Beach Post reported.
But they pose a threat to native wildlife as an invasive species – wreaking havoc to Florida’s ecosystem.
The species throws off prey populations as they have very few predators – instead preying on the native species that reside in the Everglades.
Eating just about everything that comes within their path, Burmese pythons will munch on anything from field mice to deer.
A study conducted in 2012 found that they’ve contributed to the decline of several animals – some of which include raccoons, opossums, bobcats, foxes and marsh and cottontail rabbits.
