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Posting as @moistzebra_, Emma Chong documented the moment she caught a venomous snake hiding behind her kid's toy kitchen in a viral TikTok video.
Set to the tune of "Oh No" by Kreepa, the frightening encounter was internet catnip. Within two days after its creation, the video already has more than 57,000 views.
In a reply to one commenter, Chong, who lives in the Queensland, Australia suburb of Gladstone, described the incident as "fairly normal in this area." However, she added, the resident snakes are "harmless if you leave them alone" and "are just as scared of you as you are of them."
Not everyone was convinced. Some even credited their ophidiophobia with their choice of location.
"1 reason why I prefer Melbourne, couldn't be dealing with that," one wrote.
"This is why I like the UK," another wrote.
"Why I left Australia to live in Canada!" a third wrote.
"and that's why I live where the cold air hurts my face 80% of the year," a fourth wrote.
@moistzebra_ After my last video, this is what the kids found in our house today... #snake #straya #australia #queensland #fyp #viral #ohno #panic
♬ Oh No - Kreepa
On Wednesday, Chong's 7-year-old son, Chase, came to her to tell her that he'd seen a tail disappearing beneath his toy kitchen, according to International Business Times. Her maternal instincts taking over, so Chong decided to deal with the situation then and there. Before she did, however, she apparently asked someone to record the event.
In the resulting video, Chong can be seen pushing the kitchen aside before yelling, "Get out, it's a snake! It's a snake, get out!" In response, a child screams in fear and the person filming begins to run, the camera shaking.
The footage then cuts to a close-up of the snake, a small brown specimen smaller in width than a Lego. In a caption, Chong identifies the animal as a yellow-faced whipsnake. While mildly venomous, yellow-faced whipsnakes are far from deadly. However, Adelaide Now, citing the Australian Museum, reports that a bite could still cause severe pain and swelling.
Rather than kill it, Chong decided to capture it and release it back into the wild. In the final seconds of the footage, the snake can be seen slithering out of a plastic storage container. Within seconds, it disappears into the surrounding grass.
"There it goes," Chong can be heard saying. She wrote "Bye snek" in the caption.
While Chong's initial reaction to the reptile might seem hyperbolic to the average North American viewer, Australia is home to some of the world's most venomous snakes, including the tiger snake, inland taipan and eastern brown snake.
