Surprise! Man Finds Rare Anaconda Inside His Apartment Toilet

How about an anaconda to share a bathroom with?

A man from Virginia got the shock of his life after discovering a slithering anaconda in a toilet bowl inside his apartment in Arlington.

Animal control officers were quick to respond to the incident. On their Facebook page, they shared the news and said:

"Last week, our Animal Control team received a call about a snake in the toilet of a local apartment. Officer Brenys White was able to safely remove the snake from the toilet and brought him back to the shelter. We were all in for a bit of a surprise - we were expecting him to be a wild snake or a ball python, but the snake is, in fact, a juvenile yellow anaconda!"

Science Alert said yellow anaconda (Eunectes notaeus) is one of the largest snake species in the world, which is usually found in South Africa. They can grow up to 4.4 metres (14.4 feet) and weigh up to 35 kilograms (77 pounds). Meanwhile, the anaconda found on the toilet bowl measured roughly 1.5 metres (5 feet) long.

It prefers to stay in watery areas such as swamps. They are not venomous but they could kill any prey with their strong muscles, coiling around them until their last breath. They are not highly sociable species, which is why having them in an area with a lot of people could be potentially dangerous for both.

Chicago Tribune reported Chelsea Lindsey, a spokeswoman for the animal group, said there were probably two possibilities why the anaconda found its place in the building --- someone from the apartment complex could have owned the snake as a pet and he did not secure its cage, leading to the escape of the reptile, next is that it was simply abandoned in the building.

Lindsey said the anaconda probably went hungry and started looking for mice in pipes, eventually finding itself in a toilet bowl because of its suitable temperature.

Keeping a snake as pet is not illegal, for now, but owning one is not adviseable and is highly discouraged.

Yellow Anacondas are not evaluated under the IUCN Red List of Endangered species. However, they are facing great challenge due to illegal poaching.