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Officers in Kannapolis, North Carolina, received an unusual call on Thursday afternoon when a resident found a large snake dangling from the engine of a parked car.
Photos from the incident, shared by the Kannapolis Fire and Police Departments, show the snake's head hanging out of the front grill of the car, just above the bumper.
"Just add snake wrangler to our list of duties," Kannapolis Fire and Police said in a Facebook post. "This little guy hitched a ride from Mooresville to Kannapolis and didn't want to leave.
"The Kannapolis Police Department urges everyone to be careful when giving rides to strangers, especially the slithery kind."
It is unclear how the officers removed the snake. The distance between Mooresville and Kannapolis, both just north of Charlotte, is about 16 miles.
The post has received hundreds of likes and comments on Facebook, with several users identifying the snake as a non-native ball python.
Ball pythons, also known as royal pythons, are native to west and central sub-Saharan Africa. They can be distinguished by their dark scales and rounded light-tan blotches which sometimes contain darker spots.
Ball pythons are smaller than Burmese pythons and rarely grow longer than 4 feet, according to the Florida Wildlife Commission, although in some cases they can reach lengths of up to 6 feet. The snakes are named after their tendency to curl up into a ball when stressed and are non-venomous. Instead, they kill their prey by constriction.
Due to their cold-blooded nature, it is not all that uncommon to find snakes hiding out in car engines, attracted to the warmth of the engine of the shade away from the sun.
Ball pythons are one of the most popular pet snakes in the U.S, due to their striking scale patterns and docile nature. These animals can live for an extremely long time, with one in St. Louis Zoo surviving for 62 years.
Unlike Burmese pythons, there are no known populations of ball pythons reproducing in the wild, the FWC said. Escaped pets are not uncommon and it is unclear how these escaped animals impact native ones.
Officer Whitley from the Kannapolis Fire and Police was able to find a new home for the hitchhiking snake.
"Bless...definitely somebody's escaped pet. A pretty one, though!!" commented one user.
"Thank you for caring about scaly civilians too," said another.
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About the writer
Pandora Dewan is a Senior Science Reporter at Newsweek based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on science, health ... Read more