An Australian python is in quarantine in Scotland after it managed to stow away in a passenger’s shoe on a 9,300-mile flight.
Moira Boxall, who had travelled down under to visit her daughter Sarah in Mackay, Queensland, discovered the surprise souvenir as she unpacked her suitcase back home in Glasgow.
“At first glimpse [she] thought she had been the victim of a practical joke” when she spotted the snake curled up inside her slip-on shoe, ABC News reports.
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Boxall’s son-in-law, Paul Airlie, told the broadcaster: “She had woken up a few days before she left and thought she had seen a snake in her room and woke me up at three in the morning to check.
“She actually thought that Sarah and I had put a fake snake in her shoe to wind her up, so at first she thought it was a joke until she touched it and it moved.”
The reptile had made itself at home in her shoe and “even shed its skin during its voyage in her footwear”, The Guardian reports.
Boxall covered the shoe with a box and then called her daughter and son-in-law, who contacted the Scottish RSPCA to explain the unusual situation.
The snake has since been identified as a spotted python, a non-venomous species popular among reptile enthusiasts. ABC reports that it could be taken in by a Glasgow zoo after the end of its quarantine period.
Airlie told the broadcaster that his mother-in-law was not keen to return to Queensland after her close encounter with the sneaky serpent.
“She said she's not so keen to come back and visit, but I suspect she will - she'll have to think about it at first,” he said.
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