ST PETERSBURG TIMES (Florida) 06 December 05 Girl finds unusual reptilian intruder

Brooksville: Six-year-old Chloe Holt and her friends are used to seeing all sorts of critters in her yard, a wooded lot in the heart of Brooksville. Vultures, packs of dogs and even a rattlesnake have been spotted.

But on Monday afternoon, she was playing in the yard when she came across something that really warranted special attention: a 6-foot-long boa constrictor coiled in the grass.

She told her brother Dylan Johnston, 11, and a few of their neighborhood friends.

When their older brother John Oden overheard the kids talking about a snake, he was getting ready to dye his hair purple.

"I heard "snake,' and I thought, "Oh, great. The kids are going to get bit."' He came out of the house to check it out.

The kids' mother, Hollie Holt, was the last to know.

She called the Brooksville Police Department.

Sgt. Duke Maeder arrived about 5:21. "The lady provided us a pillow case, and we picked it (the snake) up and scooted her into the pillow case, and I put her in my truck," Maeder said. "I guess she was 20 to 25 pounds."

The snake was turned over to Jim Mendenhall of Squamata Reptiles in Spring Hill, who will be holding onto it for safekeeping until someone claims it.

No one knows where the snake came from, though Hollie Holt suspects it belongs to a neighbor because it was so well-fed.

Boa constrictors can range from 20 inches as newborns to 13 feet as adults, according to a fact sheet from the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Girl finds unusual reptilian intruder

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