Erik S. Lesser / EPA

Python hunter Edward Mercer searches through the Southern Glades area of the Everglades outside Florida City, Florida. Pictures taken March 24 and 25, 2012 and made available today.

Erik S. Lesser / EPA

Mercer searches through the vast Southern Glades.

European Pressphoto Agency reports — Meet 39-year-old Edward Mercer, one of a handful of permitted python hunters in South Florida.

Since the 1990s, non-native Burmese pythons, one of the world's largest species of snake, have been flourishing in the Everglades National Park and surrounding areas. Pet owners have been known to release the snakes into the wild, where they quickly revert to their natural state.

Crocodiles thrive as neighbors of Florida nuclear plant

Burmese pythons are voracious feeders and prey on the native wildlife of the Everglades, including American alligators, raccoons, rabbits, bobcats and many different birds. The National Park Service is concerned about the impact of the pythons on the delicate ecosystem of the area.

Mercer doesn't get paid for hunting the snakes, but says he enjoys the rush of finding and capturing the elusive, semi-aquatic pythons. To date, he has caught 26 Burmese pythons, the largest of which was 12 feet long and weighed in at 43 pounds.  When he finds one, he turns it over to the state or federal wildlife authorities, depending on where it was found.

According to the Park Service, more than 1,800 Burmese pythons have been removed from the Everglades since 2002.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

Erik S. Lesser / EPA

Mercer sets up an automated camera for homeowner Marty Ward in West Palm Beach. He searches for pythons in residential areas when contacted by concerned homeowners.

Erik S. Lesser / EPA

Mercer handles one of his pet Burmese pythons at his home in Tamarac. He owns seven snakes, including two pythons. Mercer was afraid of snakes until someone gave him one.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

A bald eagle flies from its nest at Gray's Lake Park in Des Moines, Iowa on April 17.

There was a time in America when the bald eagle was on the endangered species list and facing extinction. The deadly combination of pesticides (namely DDT), and urban sprawl, had all but driven these magnificent birds out of the lower 48 states. In the mid-60s just 450 nesting pairs remained.

Fortunately for the birds, and for us, times have changed. DDT was banned nationwide in 1972 and, in many cases, humans are starting to pay more attention to their natural surroundings. Today this majestic symbol of America is thriving; so much so, it is returning to areas it fled decades ago. Read full story.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

•Sign up for the msnbc.com Photos Newsletter

Aaron Tam / AFP - Getty Images

The carcass of the world's most well-preserved baby mammoth, named Lyuba, is displayed in Hong Kong on April 10, 2012.

A perfectly preserved baby mammoth buried for 42,000 years under snow and ice has embarked on a tour across Asia.

Lyuba, whose carcass was discovered by a reindeer herder in Russia's Yamal Peninsula in 2007, is about to go on display at IFC Mall in Hong Kong and will later travel to China, Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan. She has previously toured North America.

Last week, another juvenile mammoth, nicknamed Yuka, was found entombed in Siberian ice. According to Discovery News, Yuka's body shows signs of having been cut open by ancient people. 

Tyrone Siu / Reuters

Lyuba, whose carcass is 42,000 years old, was found by a reindeer herder in the Yamal Peninsula in Russia in 2007.

Franck Robichon / EPA

A couple in a boat passes beneath cherry blossom trees along Imperial Palace Chidorigafuchi moats in Tokyo, Japan, on April 6. The Japan Meteorological Agency announced that blossoms of cherry trees are fully bloomed in Tokyo.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

Cherry blossoms in full bloom are seen in Kawasaki, near Tokyo on April 6. Spring has begun in Japan with the blooming of the country's beloved cherry trees, with revelers eager to use the occasion as a way to break from a year marked by crisis and disaster.

Franck Robichon / EPA

A cherry blossom is seen lying on a cherry tree roots at the Yasukuni Shrine precincts in Tokyo, Japan, on April 6. The Japan Meteorological Agency announced that blossoms of cherry trees are fully bloomed in Tokyo.

Love cherry blossoms? Check out...

• Along with blossoms, a cacophony of cameras

Slideshow: National Cherry Blossom Festival's 100th anniversary

Karen Bleier / AFP - Getty Images

This year marks 100 years since the gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki to Washington, D.C.

Launch slideshow

Photos by Joe Raedle / Getty Images

People watch as one of two loggerhead sea turtles are released back into the wild, March 13, 2012, at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park after they underwent rehabilitation at Miami Seaquarium. The two loggerhead sea turtles weighing in at 90 lbs and 125 lbs were both found weak in the wild, covered in parasites and struggling with buoyancy issues.

A youngster with the Miami Seaquarium Spring Break Campers group gets a chance to touch one of two loggerhead sea turtles.

AP reports that two federally protected loggerhead sea turtles are heading back to the ocean after weeks of rehabilitation at the Miami Seaquarium.

The two 10-year-old female turtles were released Tuesday morning at Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne, Fla.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

•Sign up for the msnbc.com Photos Newsletter

Lukas Coch / EPA

Thousands of spiders build new webs after floodwaters forced them to move to higher ground, in Wagga Wagga, Australia on March 6, 2012.

Thousands of spiders have cast eerie webs over vast areas of flood-hit Australia after being forced to seek shelter by the rising waters, Reuters reports.

Daniel Munoz / Reuters

Wild plants covered in spiders' webs in Wagga Wagga on March 7, 2012.

Experts said the spiders may be spinning the sticky webs to help them survive the deluge, which has forced thousands of people to leave their homes over the past week.

"What we've seen here is a type of wolf spider," Owen Seeman, arachnid expert at Queensland Museum, told Reuters. "They are trying to hide away (from the waters)."

The spider webs were seen near the inland city of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, where 8,000 people were forced from their homes before the flood waters receded on Wednesday.

The Australian Museum's entomology collections manager Graham Milledge said the spiders' behavior was known as ballooning, and was typical after spiders are forced to flee from floods.

"They often do it as a way of dispersing and getting into a new area," Milledge told the news.com.au website. "In an event like this, they are just trying to escape the floods."

Last year PhotoBlog published images of a similar phenomenon in Pakistan. 

Daniel Munoz / Reuters

A house is surrounded by spiders' webs next to flood waters in Wagga Wagga on March 6, 2012.

Lukas Coch / EPA

Sydney's Taronga Zoo said Australia's spider population has boomed in the wet weather.

Lynne Sladky / AP

Jim Duquesnel holds an iguana he caught in a trap at Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys on Aug. 31, 2011.

The Associated Press reports from BAHIA HONDA KEY, Fla. — For more than a year, Bahia Honda State Park biologist Jim Duquesnel traversed the nature sanctuary with two hopes. He wanted to see a Miami blue butterfly and rid the Florida Keys outpost of as many iguanas as he could.

The reason: The Central American invader may be driving the Miami blue into extinction by eating the leaves where it lays its eggs — a bit of butterfly caviar in every bite.

Paula Cannon / AP

In this undated photo, a Miami blue butterfly is shown at Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last August issued an emergency listing of the Miami blue as an endangered species.

No confirmed Miami blues have been seen on Bahia Honda since July 2010, and with each passing day it becomes less likely any exist there.

Still, Duquesnel has tried to keep hope alive — and eradicate the iguana from his 600-acre park in the Middle Keys.

Perhaps, he says, a half dozen Miami blues survive on some corner of the island, waiting for the right weather to emerge. Read more about his quest to protect them.

• Previously on PhotoBlog: Endangered crocodiles thrive as neighbors of Florida nuclear plant

Lynne Sladky / AP

Jim Duquesnel sets out pieces of fruit to attract iguanas on Aug. 9, 2011. The large, vegetarian lizards, probably the descendants of pets released by their owners when they grew too big or burdensome, have developed a taste for the nickerbean leaves where Miami blues laid their eggs.

Lynne Sladky / AP

Jim Duquesnel and volunteer Larry Benvenuti measure an iguana that was caught in a trap. When Duquesnel was hired in November 2010, he saw 40 or 50 adult iguanas a day in the park. Now he sees just a couple big ones a day, and they're harder to catch because they've adapted to his hunting and trapping.

Dean Lewins / EPA

The Aurora Australis navigates its way through pack ice and small icebergs in Antarctic waters in the Southern Ocean on Jan. 10, 2012. The Aurora Australis is heading to Commonwealth Bay where the Australian Antarctic Division will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson's landing.

Dean Lewins / EPA

A Black-browed Albatross flying close to the ship.

Dean Lewins / EPA

Adelie penguins take refuge on an ice floe as the ship passes.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Aurora Australis is encountering difficult weather conditions but the captain still hopes to make landfall at Commonwealth Bay on Thursday or Friday, almost exactly 100 years after Douglas Mawson and his crew spent their first night ashore there.

You can keep track of the expedition with the ship's webcam.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Roald Amundsen's South Pole feat remembered 100 years on
• Cambridge exhibit tells the story of Captain Scott's final Terra Nova polar exhibition