If you’re first thought was “this ridiculous snake headline has to be from Florida,” think… global. Where’s the only place on Earth where more animals actively want to kill you than America’s panhandle?
As much as it may make most human skin crawl, finding a snake shed or two in your attic, basement, or yard is pretty likely. Finding fifty in a single 7x7m attic, however, is the stuff horror films are made of.
Such was the case for Reid Newell of Australia this Tuesday. A snake catcher for Snake Catchers Brisbane & Gold Coast, Newell was beyond-shocked to discover more than fifty snake skins slinked within a family’s Queensland attic.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it… I’ve been in quite a lot of roofs, and the most I’ve seen before that was maybe four or five, so this was a massive jump,’ Newell tells Australia’s Courier Mail.
The professional reptile wrangler was called into the home of a coastal suburb in Currumbin. It was here that he found 57 snake skins in total – all within a 7x7m (22×22 ft) attic space.
And as any horrified professional would – Newell had to snap a photo:
Fifty Shades of Snakes
Shockingly, Newell says his image only shows a “small portion” of the snake sheds he found.
“I couldn’t say how many snakes it was from, but it definitely wasn’t one,” he continues to the Courier Mail. “It wasn’t just from the one species either, there was carpet python sheds in there, and also common tree snake sheds.”
Ah, Australia. A place where harmless things like carpets and trees get saddled with their own snake species.
“The owners were pretty cool about it, they were also shocked I told them the number of skins from multiple species was crazy to me and I think they thought that was pretty cool,” Newell adds.
Luckily for other Australian residents who may not find this nearly as “cool,” there seem to be special circumstances at play here. Newell suspects the previous owners of the home had poultry. This, in turn, attracted an array of mice and rats… And then predatory snakes to feed on all of the above.
Yet despite this stupendous skin pile, Newell didn’t end up capturing a single snake in the Currumbin household. His best guess? The reptiles must’ve been scared away while the new occupants cleaned the roof the day prior.
Stay cool, Australia.
