Grab your children, and lock your doors. A new threat has emerged in Florida, and it’s not a pedophile (this time). It’s pythons.  Discovery.com reports that “Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home.”

The animals can live anywhere alligators live, and can grow upwards of 18-feet in length, and weigh as much as a grown man.

From the article:

The pythons thriving in Florida are mostly Burmese pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in the wild.

From 2002-2005, 201 of the beasts were caught by state authorities, but in the last two years the number has more than doubled to 418, Mazzotti said in his study published on the university Web site.

The largest python caught so far in Florida measured 16.4 feet and weighed 154 pounds.

The massive constrictors can eat anything smaller than an alligator, and now number 30,000 in Florida’s marshes and wetlands, estimates say. They aren’t poisonous, but I’d say getting swallowed whole by a snake would be an pretty bad way to go.