UF study combines demographic information with machine learning to find the Burmese pythons that matter most
by Lourdes Mederos, University of Florida, IFAS
September 28, 2026
When it comes to removing Burmese pythons, one snake does not equal another.
A new study by researchers at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) offers agencies a tool to identify pythons with the greatest influence on future population growth and uses machine learning to determine when they are most likely to be detected.
Researchers expect the approach will help agencies make better use of limited resources by allowing python removal efforts to target large reproductive females, the removal of which is likely to have the biggest impact on controlling the population. Considering the age, size, sex and reproductive potential of each snake enables removal efforts to focus on areas with the highest likelihood of detecting and removing this key demographic.
“Our previous work treated all Burmese pythons as contributing equally to the population but removing the biggest female we’ve ever caught is very different from removing a tiny snake that might not survive next year,” said Alex Romer, a quantitative ecologist with the Croc Docs Wildlife Research Team and lead author on the study at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (FLREC).
Read the Ecological Applications paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.70317