– – As if the ants at picnics weren’t enough, a family from Arkansas out for a picnic in the Everglades National Park in Florida was rudely interrupted by a 17-foot Burmese python slithering into their picnic area! That could ruin your whole day, or at least your appetite. The family caught the massive snake on camera, and a park ranger killed it.
Pythons are an invasive species in the United States, where the growing population of the snakes in Florida have devastated rabbit, fox, possum, and bobcat populations; even deer and alligators are not safe from them! In January, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will host a 2013 “Python Challenge” to control the expanding python population, with a grand prize of $1,500 going to the person who kills the most pythons, and $1,000 going to the person who kills the longest specimen. Where else but Florida, however, can you encounter a shark, a gator, a giant snake, and go to Disney World all in the same week?!
– – While engaged in a conservation project to determine how to help turtles cross the road safely, a Clemson University student inadvertently discovered a disturbing fact: some drivers deliberately swerve on the road, not to miss turtles, but to intentionally hit them. 
– – We’ve had the movie, Snakes on a Plane, and now we have Maxwell the Pig in a commercial set on a plane, where two flight attendants are after him to turn off what they think is his “little word game.”- -Well, it turns out that Maxwell is actually using his Geico application to pay his bill, detailing a host of other potential functions which the flight attendants can’t quite swallow, one remarking that she’ll believe the accounting of the app’s functionality “when pigs fly.” 
– – Well, you’ll probably be relieved to hear that the life-sized crystal skulls claimed to have been passed down by the ancient Maya have spoken, and the world is not going to end…it’s the beginning of the new world, kinda like reality 2.0.
– – Even when you are out in the woods in the darkness of night, you can apparently find attached to a tree a convenient brightly-illuminated medicine cabinet, filled with a wise, zen-like squirrel who will counsel the gastric-afflicted that “many hot dogs are within you,” and provide pepto bismol to go, in a convenient use-anywhere vial! 
– – Have you ever seen anything look this sad and cute at the same time?–Don’t you just want to take it home with you?–Well, you may not want to, because it’s a venomous primate, a type of slow loris species called Nycticebus kayan newly discovered in Borneo.
– – In Minnesota, a dwindling moose population has prompted the state’s Department of Natural Resources to recommend that the moose be labeled a “species of special concern” under the state’s endangered species protections. This designation could clear the way for the Minnesota moose to eventually be listed as threatened or endangered should the population fall further.
– – Hundreds of Humboldt squid beached themselves this past weekend near Santa Cruz, California. Attempts to save the squid by placing them back into the water were futile; the squid simply swam back onto the shore!
– – It’s challenging, but not impossible to be a Halloween-centered person during Xmas season as I am; it’s all a matter of perspective. Many of you have probably seen the classic Campbell’s Xmas commercial when a friendly fir tree gently opens the window of an invitingly warm kitchen, extends a branch through the opening to the delight of a cherubic boy inside, helps itself to some green bean casserole, withdraws with it, and then essentially becomes ablaze with light as the perfect Xmas tree.- -All is calm, all is bright, right?
– – Too often, fish are regarded as dumber than a sack of hammers. This may not be true of all of our finned friends, however. In France, researchers at the University of Toulouse have observed catfish hunting pigeons as prey in a development scientists are calling evidence of adaptive behavior. 
FOXSYLVANIA 
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