In the Disney film Homeward Bound, two dogs and a cat undertake a perilous journey through the American wilderness to try and find their way home.

This story is the same but instead of pets, we have six giant snakes.

The Burmese python can grow up to 5.7 metres in length, making it one of the world’s largest snakes. As its name suggests, it hails from south-east Asia, but the exotic pet trade unleashed it upon the USA. Since 2000, these giants have spread across 1,000 square kilometres of Florida’s wetlands, suffocating local mammals and birds (and the odd alligator) along the way.

In 2006, Shannon Pittman from the University of Missouri-Columbia travelled to the Everglades National