Rat snake maybe.

nomad97

nomad97

Resident Geek
Further to the shout box the snake came down the drain pipe from the low roof to the side of the house. In the beginning I thought it may have come up from the drain but an examination of the drain cover suggests that is not possible. It then slithered around for a few minutes before heading towards the front of the house. I was resting and was rudely awakened by my eldest daughter, "Emily has been bitten by a snake". SWMBO said the snake was as big as her arm and was now hiding in the dog house. I went and peered into the dog house but did not see the snake. I surmised it was hiding underneath the dog house. The 'snake catcher' was called but we were #4 on the list. We had kept a watch on the dog house and at one point the snake was seen peeping out from underneath. They showed up an hour later and, after cautiously peering around, and removing the bricks around the dog house, found nothing.

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I re-ran the CCTV recorded video and did not see the snake escape. Then using some logic by Sherlock Holmes I came to the conclusion the snake slipped away over the garden wall and up an adjoining drain pipe, the only blind spot on the CCTV system. The snake was quite large, 2 to 3 meters.

P.S. Good news, Emily is fine and well and sleeping soundly in her rebuilt dog house.
 
She looks happy (but her house looks a good hiding-place for snakes!) She shouldn't need any treatment..... but use antiseptic if the bite area reddens. Betadine is good for dogs as well as humans.
 
Good news....Emily OK and the snaake seemingly gone. My concern would be that it will return and go ............where?

I would not have a clue as to how to contact a snake catcher. Presumably such people exist in large towns ---in the "jungle" it's a case of DIY..

At 2/3 metres in length there would be no shortage of locals vying to catch it...and later cook it.
 
I used to visit an egretry in Hong Kong, with 200 or so nests. Egrets' nests are pretty ramshackle, and the young have a tendency to fall out. In the breeding season, the ground below the nests was the home of numerous rat snakes, which fed on the chicks. And they're BIG, even if not that dangerous.

The locals still have a strong vein of hunter-gatherer blood in them, Nick, and I don't think their depredations do much harm to the snake population in general.
 
The snake catcher was found by SWMBO on Google, in Thai of course. Its a free service I think. They say they release any snakes they catch in the 'jungle' - maybe they do, maybe they don't.

That's my third encounter with a rat snake in the past 13 years or so. I do not think they are looking for trouble and will usually slide away unnoticed from whence they came. In a previous house I had a rather ornate log covered in flora and fauna sitting on the veranda. I used to sit right next to it while supping my evening ale while watching the dying sun disappear below the horizon. One day I looked out the window and my cat was playing with this log. Before long a bloody big 3 meter long rat snake slithered from the log and chased the cat away. The locals caught it and had it for dinner that night. No idea how long it had been residing in the hollow log but it never ever bothered me. By the way, I no longer keep ornate, hollow logs in the garden, just in case, know what I mean?
 
Did you know why snakes are long?

snake.jpg


Snakes owe their long, slithery bodies to a single gene, research has shown. The Oct4 gene regulates stem cells and affects the growth of the middle part, or trunk, of a vertebrate's body. In snakes, a quirk of reptilian evolution has resulted in Oct4 remaining "switched on" for longer than usual during embryonic development.

See: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...scovered-why-snakes-are-so-long-a7178021.html for a full explanation.
 
nomad97 said:
Did you know why snakes are long?

snake.jpg


Snakes owe their long, slithery bodies to a single gene, research has shown. The Oct4 gene regulates stem cells and affects the growth of the middle part, or trunk, of a vertebrate's body. In snakes, a quirk of reptilian evolution has resulted in Oct4 remaining "switched on" for longer than usual during embryonic development.

See: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...scovered-why-snakes-are-so-long-a7178021.html for a full explanation.
Click to expand...
That f**ker looks like a common cobra.
 
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