As if one giant python wasn't enough, a cluster of captures in a single square mile of West Miami-Dade has scientists worried about a new species spreading across South Florida.

And this constrictor makes the Burmese python that has already pushed deep into the Everglades seem almost cuddly. The snake is the African rock python, a relative similar in size, appearance and appetite but considered much more aggressive.

``They are just mean, vicious snakes,'' said Kenneth Krysko, senior herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. ``You couldn't get a worse python to become established. A Burmese python is just a docile snake. These things will lunge at you.''

Only six African pythons have been recovered in South Florida since 2002.

The most notable came four years ago when a 10-footer pretty much captured itself in a turkey coop near Coral Way and Southwest 147th Avenue, when it swallowed a bird too large to let the snake slip back out through the wire mesh. Pythons literally squeeze the life out of prey, biting, crushing and then swallowing meals whole.

In 2005, scientists just beginning to tackle the emerging Burmese python menace dismissed the turkey incident as isolated, likely the work of an escaped or illegally released pet.

But a recent string of finds nearby -- all centered around the swampy southeast corner of Tamiami Trail and Krome Avenue -- strongly suggests the rock python has settled in, said Robert Reed, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado, who is working with Krysko, Everglades National Park and other researchers on efforts to control the constrictors.

Last November, a snake expert nearly caught a 12-footer. In May, the Miami-Dade Fire Department's Anti-Venin Unit picked up a nine-foot female, carrying 37 unfertilized eggs, run over on Coral Way. In August, another expert caught a small hatchling near Tamiami Trail. Two weeks later, firefighters were again called to collect a two-footer dispatched by a homeowner with a BB-gun.

That covers the whole life span -- male, female, baby, juvenile -- in less than a year.

``Since they're all in a small area, I don't need much more evidence of a population than that,'' Reed said.

DIFFICULT TO SPOT

Because wary, well-camouflaged python are so difficult to spot in the wild, the two scientists believe the snake has likely already established itself and has probably slithered the short distance across Krome to join the estimated tens of thousands of Burmese python now living in the nearby Everglades.

``What you see probably in no way represents what is out there,''Reed said. ``When you have three in a year, that rings warning bells.''

In the wild, scientists believe both species primarily pose a threat to native wildlife. Burmese python seem to grow a bit larger and tolerate cold better than their relatives from Africa. But both rank among the largest snakes in the world, sometimes topping 20 feet, and they're equally capable of preying on anything that lives in the Everglades -- from birds to bobcats to alligators.

Both have been imported over the years but the African python, while not exactly rare, is much less popular as a pet, said Daniel Parker, who owns Sunshine Serpents, a breeding and nature tour business in Highlands County.

``They're kind of nasty snakes,'' he said, nervous and more apt to bite than Burmese. Parker doubts their behavior in captivity would make them more of a threat to the public than Burmese. ``People have played up the danger to humans too much,'' he said.

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