MIAMI (AP) - Wildlife officials say a Burmese python nearly 5.8 metres long has been captured in Florida.

It's a new record for the longest Burmese python caught in the wild in Florida. The previous record was a 5.4 metre python caught in August in Everglades National Park.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the snake was caught on May 11 alongside a road in rural Miami-Dade County.

Wildlife officials said Monday that a Miami man spotted about one metre of the snake sticking out of the roadside brush. He grabbed it and started dragging it into the open. When the snake began to wrap itself around his leg, he called to his friends for help and then used a knife to kill it.

The python weighed 58 kilograms.