Hobbies And Interests
Humans as Predators
People kill pythons on occasion for a variety of reasons. In some parts of the world, they are killed for food, as many other kinds of snakes are. People may also feel threatened by a large python in the vicinity of a settlement and kill it out of self-preservation, though even the biggest of these snakes rarely attack humans. Finally, pythons may be actively hunted where they have been introduced, intentionally or not, into a previously python-free landscape by human beings. A few species, most notably the Burmese python, roam free as exotic non-natives in South Florida. Park managers, for example, do their best in Everglades National Park to remove the snakes, which threaten native ecosystems.
Birds
A variety of birds will hunt young pythons and all age classes of smaller species. Green tree pythons, arboreal serpents of Indonesia, Papau New Guinea and Australia, attempt to avoid such feathered predators as raptors, rufous owls and black butcherbirds. Herons and storks will readily snatch up unwary juvenile pythons, and large eagles -- such as the Philippine eagle of Southeast Asia, the wedge-tailed eagle of Australia and the crowned eagle of Africa -- are a definite threat.
Mammals
A suite of mammalian carnivores might target small young pythons. Large carnivores, particularly big cats, are among the few animals capable of killing adults of the biggest python species, though such events are likely fairly rare. Even a big reticulated or Indian python might occasionally fall prey to a tiger, while the formidable African rock python, particularly when caught in the open or while digesting, could face trouble from spotted hyenas, African wild dogs or lions. Leopards may also occasionally tangle with pythons in both Asia and Africa. Other large snakes in the world that normally function as apex predators are, rarely, vulnerable to big cats: In South America, jaguars sometimes kill the huge, python-like boas called anacondas.
Reptiles
Crocodilians feed on pythons on occasion, just as they themselves sometimes fall victim to the snakes. Two species in particular, the Nile crocodile of sub-Saharan Africa and the estuarine crocodile (often called the saltwater or Indo-Pacific crocodile) of Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea and Australia, possess the size and power to potentially prey on even the largest of pythons. A large monitor lizard might prey on a small python, and the huge king cobra of Asia -- the world's longest venomous snake, with a maximum length of 19 feet or so -- regularly hunts pythons up to around 10 feet long. Pythons occasionally prey on one another, as well.