A snake escaped from its cage and swallowed a child in the New York, polic
e say. The victim, aged 7, was staying overnight at a friend’s apartment that housed the reptile. “The preliminary investigation has led police to believe that a python snake escaped its enclosure sometime overnight,” said Constable Julie Rogers-Marsh. Police were notified about 6:30 a.m. The owner of the snake told the reporters that the snake was an African rock python, the continent’s largest snake, which can grow to 20 feet long. In the wild, African rock pythons feed on monkeys, antelopes, warthogs and even crocodiles. In suburban areas, their prey includes dogs, goats, rats or fowl.
They rarely attack humans, but when they do, the victims are usually children. Police said it was not yet clear how the non-venomous snake escaped. They believe the snake slipped out of its cage overnight and travelled through the ventilation and swallowed the boy. In November, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission held a month-long competition to capture and kill invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades.
Florida wildlife officials say African rock pythons pose an even bigger threat to the state and are more dangerous than their Burmese cousins. “This is just one vicious animal,” Kenneth Krysko, a herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, said in a 2013 National Geographic article. He said African pythons are “so mean they come out of the egg striking.” Although this snake is known to rarely eat humans it sure has no problem killing them. It somehow managed to escape its living arrangements and swallow a small child.
Source http://mogul.ws
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