In Florida’s Everglades, Burmese pythons are helping scientists track pollution

Burmese pythons are known in Florida for preying on native wildlife, but scientists are now using the invasive snakes for a very different purpose. Researchers have found that chemicals stored in their bodies can provide clues about pollution moving through the Greater Everglades ecosystem.

A 2026 study found PFAS in the livers of 67 Burmese pythons collected in and around the Everglades. Earlier research has also shown that the snakes accumulate mercury.

Also Read: Age reversing seafood found? Scientists discover sea squirts that can help you get younger


The approach gives researchers a way to study pollution without deliberately capturing additional native animals. Burmese pythons are already being removed from southern Florida as part of efforts to control their population, allowing scientists to use tissue from those captured snakes for environmental research.

Why Burmese pythons can reveal environmental pollution

The usefulness of Burmese pythons comes from their place in the food chain.

They are long-lived predators with a broad diet and consume their prey whole. As a result, contaminants present in the animals they eat can enter and build up in their own tissues.

Because the snakes can consume different types of prey and move across parts of the ecosystem, their bodies may provide information about pollutants that have travelled through the food web.

Scientists describe them as holophagous consumers because they swallow prey whole. Their position near the top of the food chain can also allow chemicals accumulated by smaller organisms to become concentrated in their tissues.

Researchers behind the 2026 study said these characteristics make Burmese pythons useful as environmental sentinels.

PFAS detected in python livers

The latest research focused on a group of chemicals known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

The study, titled Invasive Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) as sentinels for PFAS biomonitoring in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, was published in Science of the Total Environment in May 2026.

Researchers analysed liver samples from 67 Burmese pythons. They tested the samples for 30 PFAS compounds using high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Nine PFAS compounds were measured above the laboratory's limit of quantification.

Linear PFOS was found in 93% of the python liver samples. Its median concentration was 89 nanograms per gram of dry tissue. Across the PFAS compounds measured in the study, the median combined concentration was 111 nanograms per gram of dry tissue.

Python PFAS levels were higher than those reported in alligators

The research also compared the snakes with a native predator in the same broader ecosystem.

The median total PFAS concentration in Burmese python livers was higher than concentrations previously reported in the livers of American alligators living in the Everglades region.

Researchers did not find a statistically significant difference between snakes sampled from eastern and western areas around the Everglades.

Also Read: A small asteroid just crashed near Australia, and astronomers are thrilled about it

A difference was found between male and female pythons, however. Male snakes had significantly higher combined PFAS concentrations than females, with the statistical test producing a p-value below 0.0001.

Among female pythons, PFAS levels tended to fall as body length and mass increased. Researchers said this pattern could be linked to maternal transfer of contaminants.

What PFAS can tell scientists about the Everglades

PFAS are human-made chemicals that can remain in the environment for long periods.

Finding these substances in wildlife is important because it can show that pollutants are moving through food chains. Contamination is not necessarily limited to water or sediment; it can also reach animals that feed within the ecosystem.

That makes the python study broader than simply measuring chemicals in individual snakes. The researchers are using the animals to examine the wider contaminant burden across the Greater Everglades.

There is also a practical benefit. Since Burmese pythons are already being captured for population control, scientists can collect their tissues without creating additional pressure on native wildlife.

Mercury has already been found in Burmese pythons

PFAS is not the first pollutant that researchers have tracked through these invasive snakes.

Mercury has also been detected in Burmese pythons in southern Florida. A 2019 study examined tissue from 227 snakes captured in southwest Florida between 2012 and 2018.

The highest mercury concentration was 4.86 milligrams per kilogram in the liver of a 4.7-metre-long python. In 123 tail-tip samples, the average concentration was 0.12 ± 0.19 milligrams per kilogram.

The researchers said Burmese pythons could help monitor mercury at the point where aquatic and terrestrial environments meet. They also suggested that collecting samples during existing python-control operations could make such monitoring more practical.

USGS data covers more than two decades

The evidence on mercury has also grown through a larger US Geological Survey dataset.

Released in 2025, the dataset, Mercury Concentrations in Burmese Pythons Across the Greater Everglades Region in Florida from 2001 to 2022, brings together measurements from different periods and habitats.

Researchers examined mercury in python tail muscle from two main periods, 2001 to 2011 and 2014 to 2019. The snakes came from wetland, forested and urban areas.

The work also included samples from offspring of six female pythons captured in 2022. Scientists examined kidney, liver and muscle tissues from the young snakes and measured mercury in the mothers' blood to investigate how the metal moves through the snakes' bodies and whether it can pass from mother to offspring.

A snake can carry evidence from across the food web

Traditional environmental testing often focuses on a particular place and moment.

A water sample, for example, can show the level of contamination at one location when the sample is collected. A predator can provide a different kind of evidence.

A Burmese python may move across the landscape and eat several prey species. Chemicals accumulated through those meals can remain in its tissues, creating a biological record of exposure over time.

Scientists can then examine contaminant levels alongside information such as the snake's location, size and sex. The USGS has noted that Burmese pythons accumulate mercury by eating smaller animals containing the metal, making them potentially useful for studying mercury patterns across the Everglades.

An invasive species provides a research opportunity

Burmese pythons are an invasive species in southern Florida and are already being targeted through removal programmes because of their effect on native wildlife.

That creates an unusual opportunity for scientists.

Instead of capturing native predators specifically for pollution research, researchers can examine tissues from pythons that have already been removed.

The 2019 mercury research highlighted the potential cost benefit of combining environmental monitoring with python-control programmes. The 2026 PFAS study makes a similar case, using the invasive species as a source of information about contamination in the ecosystem.

The research could be used to study other pollutants

The same approach may not be limited to PFAS and mercury.

Chemicals that persist in the environment, move through food webs and accumulate in animal tissues could potentially be studied using the snakes.

Burmese pythons live across aquatic and terrestrial environments and eat a wide range of prey. Their tissues may therefore help scientists examine contamination across different parts of the ecosystem.

The 2026 researchers described the species as a useful sentinel for understanding the PFAS burden in the Everglades, while earlier research established its value for studying mercury.

The snakes cannot replace conventional pollution tests

Calling Burmese pythons "moving sensors" may make the idea easy to understand, but their bodies do not directly measure pollution.

The chemical levels found in a snake can be affected by several factors, including what it eats, where it travels, its age, sex, body size and reproductive condition.

The PFAS study itself found differences between males and females and indications that contaminants could be transferred from mothers. Those findings show why tissue measurements need to be interpreted alongside other information.

Python testing is therefore better viewed as one part of environmental monitoring. It can add to measurements taken from water, sediment, prey and native wildlife rather than replacing them.

From invasive predator to pollution record

Burmese pythons have become a major ecological concern in Florida because of their impact on native wildlife. Yet the same characteristics that make them effective predators are giving scientists another reason to study them.

Their long lives, varied diets and position high in the food chain allow contaminants to accumulate in their bodies. Their removal from the Everglades also provides researchers with access to samples without requiring additional captures of native animals.

With PFAS now detected in python livers and mercury measurements extending across decades, the invasive snakes are becoming a source of information about the environment they have entered.

Each captured python can therefore provide two kinds of evidence: information about the invasive species itself and a record of the pollutants it encountered as it moved through the Everglades.