It was about 2 in the morning when Claudilio Cruz, a member of a road crew spreading asphalt on U.S. 1 in the affluent Miami suburb of Pinecrest, heard frantic honking.

When he looked up he was blinded at first by headlights, but then noticed something, frankly, unbelievable: A 14-foot Burmese python slowly slithering across the six-lane highway.

Another car almost ran the snake over. Cruz managed to stop traffic — for the safety of both the late-night drivers and the snake.

This was not the middle of the Everglades. This was the middle of suburbia. The snake was less than a mile from the Dadeland mall, amongst a strip of office buildings, car dealerships, restaurants and shopping centers.

How had the huge reptile gotten there, and are there more of the apex predator infiltrating subur

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