Advertisement

Python hitches 900-mile ride on truck

Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter

ADELAIDE, Australia, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- A python that hitched a ride across hundreds of miles of Australian highway on the underside of a truck is getting a free plane ride back to Alice Springs.

Ron de Graaf was unable to dislodge the snake when he first spotted it looped around air conditioning equipment while he was gassing up, the Adelaide Advertiser reported. He drove the 20-hour, 900-mile trip to Adelaide and waited for the python to loosen up.

Advertisement

Three hours after arriving, de Graaf finally got the snake, a Children's python, and took it to the Environment and Heritage Department.

"I knew that it wasn't a native to South Australia and didn't belong down here so I brought it to the people who know what to do with it," he said.

Hannah Dryden, a spokeswoman for Environment and Heritage, said it was "admirable" for de Graaf to turn the python in. She said people who find reptiles under their vehicles often try to keep them as pets and finally surrender them -- after they are so thin they have to be euthanized.

Australia Air Express has offered to return the snake to Alice Springs, where it will be returned to the Outback.

Advertisement

Latest Headlines