The researchers expected to find only the pure genetic makeup of the Burmese python, the deadly constrictor that has exploded in numbers to supplant the American alligator as the region’s apex predator since a small number of unwanted pets were released in the 1980s. For the study, published Sunday in the journal Ecology and Evolution, U.S. Geological Survey researchers examined the tail tissue of 400 snakes captured in South Florida, from the Big Cypress Swamp to the Everglades. “When two species come together they each have a unique set of genetic traits and characteristics they use to increase their survival and their unique habitats and environments,” said Margaret Hunter, a USGS research geneticist and the lead author of the report. “It’s quite interesting and quite surprising, but we don’t know the extent it’s in the population.” 
 
 Because evolution seems to abhor certainty, there’s also the possibility the opposite happens through another process, she said, euphemistically referred to as ‘outbreeding depression.’ 
 
 The Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System allows researchers and citizens to report the locations of spotted pythons. That allows for the best of both worlds in the Everglades, it helps them to adapt to this new ecosystem potentially more rapidly.” 
 
 Hunter stressed that the genetic markers – found only in the snakes’ mitochondrial DNA passed down through the maternal line – do not mean a new species of super-snake has suddenly been unleashed on the Everglades. “Morphologically, lots of times if you have a hybrid between two good species, the hybrid shares the traits of both [but] how that translates to behaviour I don’t know,” said Steve Johnson, associate professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Florida. Sign up to receive the top US stories every morning 
 
 Instead, they were surprised to uncover “a tangled family tree”, the genetic signature of the Indian rock python present in at least 13 snakes.
– A genetic study has found a new and dangerous possibility lurking in the DNA of Florida's invasive pythons. Per the Miami Herald, researchers from the US Geological Survey tested hundreds of the Everglades' already worryingly prolific giant snake species and what they found could mean an even hardier invader down the line. Where they expected to find nothing but DNA from the water-loving ancestors of carelessly released pet Burmese pythons, scientists discovered that at least 13 of 400 snakes tested showed signs of hybridization with a relative known as the Indian rock python. Unlike the Burmese, the rock python prefers to live on higher drier ground. It's also faster and smaller. Per the Guardian, this tells researchers that floating somewhere in the gene pool of Florida's estimated 150,000 pythons could be a mix of genes that could lead to a "super snake" with the ability to adapt even better to subtropical conditions in a Florida ecosystem already overrun with exotic and damaging invasives. Because researchers can't tell from their 400 snakes exactly how many of the Sunshine State's pythons are hybrids, they can't say for sure whether the added Indian rock python traits could one day make the population more adaptable to larger swaths of Florida and beyond.