Florida researchers are expanding an innovative program that uses GPS-collared opossums to locate invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades. The method, discovered accidentally in 2022, takes advantage of the snakes’ natural predation: when a python ...

In Key Largo this spring, wildlife crews started turning local opossums into unlikely scouts, slipping lightweight tracking collars around their necks and releasing them back into the mangrove thickets.

Here's what we know about the 2026 Florida Python Challenge, how the yearly hunt works and a little bit about last year's winner.