Largest python ever found in Florida is 18 feet long and weighs a whopping 200 pounds

 

Researchers Ian Bartoszek (left), Ian Easterling, and intern Kyle Findley (right) transport a record-breaking female Burmese Python — weighing 215 pounds and measuring 17.7 feet in length — to their lab in Naples, Florida, to be laid out and photographed. (Image credit: Phot ograph by Maggie Steber, National Geographic)

The largest Burmese python ever seen in Florida has been discovered

, lured out of its hiding place in the Everglades by researchers who used another python as bait, National Geographic reported(opens in new tab). 

The gargantuan snake was a female, measuring nearly 18 feet (5.4 meters) long and weighing 215 pounds (97 kilograms) — 30 pounds (13.6 kg) more than the next-largest python ever found in the state. Most Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) that are found in Florida range between 6 and 10 feet (1.8 and 3 m) long, although in their native habitats in Southeast Asia, the snakes commonly reach 18 feet long (5.4 m) and the largest can reach lengths of 20 feet (6 m) or more, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission(opens in new tab). 

Originally published on Live Science.