Pet ball python escapes from student’s backpack
After disappearing in the University Centre (UC) on Thurs, Feb. 9, a U of G student’s pet snake was found and captured safely following a four-day search.
The two-foot ball python was reported missing on the second floor of the UC having escaped from its owner’s backpack. According to CTV News, the owner brought the pet snake to campus with the intention of bringing it to see a vet at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC).
The Campus Community Police, as well as pest specialists from Physical Resources, were tasked with searching the building for the snake and advised people to not try to pick up the snake if they found it.
As with any toothed animal, snakes have the potential for a painful bite. However, ball pythons are not dangerous or venomous; they’re known as docile house pets and are unlikely to bite.
Ball pythons are also known as royal pythons and can live up to 40 years in captivity. Ranging in length from three-feet to five-feet long, they are popular pets and many breeders selectively breed them to achieve special colours and patterns. Snakes, along with other scaled lizards, are ectothermic and rely on environmental heat sources so that they can operate at efficient metabolic rates.
In a statement for the Campus Community Police, Hugues Beaufrère, chief of the Avian and Exotic Medicine Service at the OVC, said that the ball python was “likely scared and trying to hide, looking for some place warm.”
Signs of the snake’s presence, such as pieces of the snake’s molten skin and urine crystals, were found around the second floor of the UC throughout the weekend and students later found the black and brown python hiding under a desk on Sun, Feb. 12.
Campus Community Police were able to capture the snake safely and bring it to the OVC for a health check.
The snake that went missing on campus is similar in colour and size to the ball python pictured above.
Photo by Karen K. Tran.