Pet python wanders off to church

MELBOURNE, March 5 (UPI) -- A jungle python has been reunited with its Australian owner after slithering to a church about 3 miles from its home in a Melbourne suburb.

The owner, a truck driver who would give only his first name, Ross, told the Herald Sun the snake, Princess, was missing when he returned home to Boronia from a road trip. He said his wife does not like snakes and generally ignores Princess and two baby Darwin carpet pythons he keeps in an enclosure.

It turned out Princess had been captured about two weeks earlier at the Church Street of Christ Church, the Herald Sun reported Tuesday. Snake handler Barry Goldsmith said he was called in after a child attending a Bible study class touched the snake, thinking it was a toy.

Goldsmith had been trying to find the python's owner.

Ross said his children love the snakes, especially his 2-year-old daughter. He said she already knows how to judge when a snake is preparing to strike.

"She'll walk around the house with the python around her shoulders and she'll take the python out the back and show her the mice," he said.