BEYOND FLORIDA

Florida isn't the only place with problems.

Virtually every state is grappling with fish, frogs, snails, snakes, rats and a host of other creatures that scientists fear could cut into native populations by eating them or crowding them out. Chesapeake Bay's tidal waters alone contain at least 177 species of exotics, said the Smithsonian's Ruiz.

Scientists also have seen an uptick in new, persistent diseases linked to invaders.

Bug-eating bat colonies in the northeast, for instance, have been hammered by a mysterious fungus called White Nose Syndrome, with a resulting sharp rise in mosquito populations.

But the python clearly has become the poster monster of the invasive threat. Its capabilities were tragically underlined last week when an eight-foot pet escaped its terrarium and strangled 2-year-old Shaiunna Hare in Sumter County.

State wildlife managers believe it was the first death in Florida from a python. The U.S. Humane Society has recorded at least 17 similar attacks nationwide and seven deaths in the last decade.

Nelson warned fellow lawmakers that scientists are charting pythons slithering north up the peninsula.

''If it continues to proliferate, you're going to find it all over the southern United States,'' Nelson said. California and any Sun Belt state might be vulnerable as well, he said.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said he had pondered bringing in a zebra snail to display. That Great Lakes invader has been a much bigger and more expensive nuisance than pythons, clustering so thickly in intake pipes that they have shut down power and water plants. But he worried Nelson's exhibit would ``make it look puny in comparison.''

''I'm glad this damn python is a long way from where we live,'' Levin said.

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