Seat belt on, check side mirrors, adjust the rear mirror and… NOPE! It was a Sunday well spent for this Brisbane family – a park picnic AND a new (unwanted) pet with this snake found in the family car. Eeeeeep.
It’s not unusual to leave windows open a smidge if you’re leaving your car unattended out in the country. Let in the breeze, stop the stifling heat … you get it. Apparently though, as this Brisbane family found out, it also lets the local wildlife in for a bit of casual sunbathing behind your windscreen. Holy. Bleeping. Slithering. Batman.
Sunday picnic and a snake found in the family car
Popping up on the Brisbane North Snake Catcher – Josh’s Snake Catching Facebook page, they captioned the images from the callout with this cheeky caption:
Only in Australia! With it being such a nice day today, a family went on a lovely Sunday picnic to the local park. They decided to leave the window cracked open a little to prevent the car from heating up inside so it wasn’t too hot when they were to ready to go home. Well by doing this they got a new pet.
My only question is “What happened to the fluffy dice?”
Hand the keys over, this car belongs to this reptile now. Nope. Nope. Nope to the nope rope.
Me, gifting my car to the snake community. via GIPHY
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
It was reported that Brisbane snake catcher Josh Castle has said he’d “never seen it” before. NOT COMFORTING JOSH.
“I have pulled them out of car bonnets and stuff like that, which is more to be expected because they can get into a bonnet from underneath.
“The fact it was actually in the car and soaking in the sun through the window on the mirror is quite weird.”
“We’ve pretty much found them everywhere now. That pretty much ticks every box on where we’ve found them” Josh said.
Australia, beautiful one day, terrifying the next.
That’s a BIG snake
In what was sure to be a chaotic find for the family, the snake was identified to be a HUGE 1.3m long Coastal Carpet python. Coastal Carpet pythons are the single largest snake species encountered throughout the beautiful Brisbane and Ipswich regions.
We’re relieved to read that the Coastal Carpet python is NOT a venomous snake but heck, a bite from one of these will still cause considerable damage to you, not to mention the weight of its slithering body wrapped around the rear vision mirror!
Real estate opportunities are rife for snakes
So the takeaway here (for me and no doubt many others) is DON’T RISK IT. Don’t leave your windows open AT ALL. It’s practically inviting wildlife in for an open inspection and it doesn’t take much for them to move in by the look of it (even though we know snake catcher Josh said he’d never seen it before!)
Prevention is better than cure!
Not convinced this wasn’t just a one-off either? You might remember the time there was a carpet snake in a child’s water bottle or that time a deadly eastern brown snake launched itself from the kids’ Lego set. Yeah, we haven’t forgotten either. With that said, I urge you to batten down the hatches, close car and house windows, secure pet doors and don’t leave screen doors ajar.
If you DO happen to have an unwelcome visitor of the snake variety, for the love of LIVING, please don’t attempt to catch it or coax it out yourself. Call your local snake catcher, wildlife officer or your local council who will be able to help you. And of course, take another look at our article about what to do if a snake bites your child which you should do anyway, we live in Australia, after all!
