Member-only story
Snakes Where They Shouldn’t Be
Introduced species wreaking havoc
The service centre where I take my car has a snake skin on the wall. It’s a shed skin coiled up in a square picture frame. At about 3.5 metres long, it belonged to either a large Carpet Python (Morelia spilota) or a mid-sized Amethystine Python (Simalia kinghorni). No other snakes in the area reach that size. The python was (and probably still is) living in the store room, earning its place on staff by controlling mice and rats that might otherwise damage the paperwork. It didn’t bother anyone, so they didn’t bother it.
This wasn’t the first snake they’d dealt with.
I was waiting for my car one day when the receptionist told me that the mechanic had found a snake in the engine well. Once mechanic and snake had both recovered from the surprise, the snake was relocated it to a forested gully nearby and the mechanic continued his work.
The car-dweller was a Brown Tree Snake (Boiga irregularis, Colubridae), a common species in this part of the world, although sometimes overlooked because it is a climber. (Always check umbrellas over outdoor tables — snakes love curling up in the spokes.)
