It seems you’ve been very naughty and let your snakes out in the Everglades. Pythons, to be precise.

They love it there.

And “authorities” are warning that the Everglades is not the only palce in the United States that could be “python friendly”.

Fox News

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the snakes as injurious wildlife under the Lacey Act, which would prohibit them from being imported or carried across state lines.

Unfortunately, the horse has already left the barn. One million live Burmese pythons were legally imported into the U.S. between 2001 and 2006, according to Fish and Wildlife. Almost all of them ended up as pets, and half of them came in through Miami.

“We don’t have tools that are sufficient to control them on a continental scale,” says Gordon Rodda, an invasive snake expert at the Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado, and lead author of the USGS study determining the extent of the snake’s possible range.

Climate is the key factor in whether a snake can live or die in any given area. The USGS study, published in the February issue of the scientific journal Biological Invasions, found that conditions — including temperature and rainfall — in the lower third of the continental U.S. match those where pythons live in Southeast Asia, India and China.

The northern limits of the hypothetical U.S. range are open to some interpretation among snake experts, but most agree that the maps accurately predict where the pythons could survive. And since closely related Indian pythons live in the foothills of the Himalayas, where temperatures can dip to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, there’s some wiggle room.

When the thermometer gets that low, or seasonal conditions get too dry, snakes aren’t up for doing much and will simply hibernate, possibly for as long as four months.

A 10-foot snake ideally requires a fairly large, empty cavity to crawl into, but a hole under a tree stump or a rock pile will suffice.

Getting enough food isn’t a big problem for Burmese pythons — they seem to prefer birds and rats, but will eat almost anything.

“If you’re a sit-and-wait predator, you’re probably going to grab it if it goes by,” Rodda said. “You’re not going to say, ‘I don’t feel like bluebirds today, I’d rather wait for a quail.’”

Talking pythons? Waiting to grab you as you walk by?

I’m never, ever going into the woods again.