14 years in Australia and my first bona fide sighting of a lethal animal (valid assumption?) in the 'wild':



I wasn't willing to get any closer for the photo opportunity but he was about 6-8ft long, as thick as your wrist and happily wriggling away across the road, along the gutter and up onto the pavement.

There were 2 middle aged women trying to encourage me to run over it in the car with the whole "only good snake is a dead snake" mantra - but I'm not so keen to destroy an interesting and easily avoided bit of fauna.

Chances are the thing would have got wrapped up in your suspension

Nice snake:

Don't ever run them over, not unless you fancy giving it a free ride home

Where was that? We've had some around the office in Banyo..

Murarrie (lots of nearby swampland with suitable birds, amphibians and rodents to feed on)

I doubt it was anywhere near 8 feet but a nice looking snake. I have been called out in the past to catch a huge deadly snake at least 10 feet long to find a Carpet Python about 3 feet long at best. Rather than advise others not to run over a snake because it might get tangled up in the car its possibly best to discourage it because it is illegal to deliberately hurt a protected animal. Im amazed this was the first venomous snake you have seen in all those years, quite an achievement

It was still in the same spot when I left work 4 hours later - and although I didn't straighten it out to measure it I'm standing by the original estimate made when it was tracking down the curb and reasonably stretched out. Definately in excess of 6ft so 6-8ft seems a reasonable category to place it in

That's fair enough it is just that an 8 foot snake really is huge.

Agreed - its a big MOFO, perhaps we can settle on "6ft+" as a description?

Reviewing that picture it does seem relatively fat and short compared to the pythons Ive had around the yard a few times (accurately measured via discarded skins @8ft) so perhaps I'm projecting unreasonably for this brown beastie based on its impressive girth?

Either way I'm spectacularly impressed that he was still there at the end of the day. I hope he hadn't been run over and was just lying there dying? (he still appeared to be in tact. - but I didn't get too close)

I'll check again tomorrow morning!

Are you sure it isn't dead already? The only still snakes I've seen have been dead.

Ok... so you question the validity of an 8 foot snake but you say you were called out to deal with a ten foot one.I think your just a black cat merchant.

It was pretty clear from the post that "huge deadly snake 10 feet long" was what the caller said, and that it in fact turned out to be smaller.

Well I checked snake about 2 metres from my wife when she was sitting under tree by the river. It was also brown on top with a green side/belly. About 40cm long and very thick for its body length, about 4cm in diameter. The tail tapered off quickly. It slinked off into the undergrowth before I could get a photo.

Can't ID it from this website.

http://www.wildlifeqld.com.au/Snake_Identification_and_Infomation.html

Anyway, first wild live snake siting in Oz.

No I'm not sure but it did move to have its head hanging off the gutter by the time I left. it definitely seemed healthy when I first saw it. I pulled up short of running over it in the car as it was coiled on the road, then as I parked up it uncoiled, headed to the gutter and moved 10m or so down the road before jumping up the gutter, gagging about on the grass a bit and the settling down.

4 hours later he was on the same stretch of grass.

dead? Perhaps, I don't whether he was already injured by the time I saw him.

For the record I've seen a few perfectly still snakes before; basking, sorting themselves out....