Snake lost on train back cuddling owner

BOSTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- A Boston woman has her boa constrictor back, a month after the reptile slipped off her neck on a subway.

Melissa Moorhouse, 30, told The Boston Globe she first noticed Penelope, her nearly 3-foot-long, non-venomous Dumeril's boa, missing as she headed outbound on the Red Line train Jan. 6.

Transit employees helped her look in the subway car, held the train for a few minutes and searched further at the Braintree terminus without success.

Thursday morning, a Red Line passenger spotted a snake and told a motorman, transit police Lt. Daniel Fitzgerald said. The train was taken out of service, but it was not until that night that train attendant Sharon Lynch got Penelope into a box.

Moorhouse said, "I'm overwhelmed. I'm extremely happy to have her back."

She said the snake could hide in tiny spaces and fend for itself.

"What I've been trying to tell people is that she would survive, she would be in the train whether it was weeks or months,'' she said. "I don't know if they have mice or rats but she is completely capable of eating them.''