It was on a sssshoppping sssspree.
Customers at an Australian supermarket got an unexpected wildlife encounter after happening upon a 10-foot python slithering about the shelves.
“Only in Australia!” Facebook user Hilary Leigh wrote above a clip of the serpentine “shopping spree,” which occurred Monday night at Glenorie supermarket in Sydney’s North West District. The accompanying 12-second footage shows the brilliantly speckled diamond python — which resides in coastal areas of New South Wales — jutting out from the spice aisle like a prop on a Disney “Jungle Cruise” ride.
Helaina Alati was reportedly searching for ingredients for that night’s dinner when she turned her head and saw the massive constrictor “just 20 centimeters from my face,” the Guardian Australia reported.
“It just wanted to say hello,” the surprised shopper said. “Dozens of people must have walked past it.”
Alati, who coincidentally used to serve as a volunteer snake catcher, added that she was lucky it had popped out at her, saying, “Most people would have freaked out.”
Upon sighting the not-so-stealthy slitherer jutting out from the shelves, quick-thinking supermarket staffers cordoned off the area from customers, whereupon Alati went home to retrieve her snake-catching equipment. The former python hunter then safely removed the serpent and released it into the nearby bushland.
“It was chill, and not aggressive at all,” said Alati, adding that the diamond python “slithered right into the bag.”
Indeed, despite their fearsome countenance, these non-venomous constrictors aren’t generally aggressive towards humans, instead preferring to feast on possums, rats and other critters. However, they can inflict a painful bite as the “teeth can break off and remain embedded in the victim.”
Unfortunately, while not endangered, the diamond python is not as widespread in Sydney as it once was, which experts chalk up to the pressure it faces from habitat destruction.
Alati, for one, was buzzing from the unusual wildlife sighting.
“I’m used to seeing snakes in weird places, but I wouldn’t expect it to be in a Woolworths,” she exclaimed.
This isn’t the first time a reptile has gone on a so-called shopping spree. This past April, a water monitor lizard terrified shoppers after going on a “Godzilla”-esque rampage through a 7-Eleven in Bangkok, Thailand.
