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Just when you thought things in London couldn’t get any scarier after wildfires, the source of the Thames drying up and a new polio outbreak. Well, prepare for things to get even worse, because there might be a humongous snake slithering around the banks of the Thames.
This week, Jason Sandy, a mudlark (one of those people who hunts for treasures on the river foreshore), found a snakeskin so big it could belong to a boa constrictor, aka the world’s scariest snake. West Londoners beware: the five-foot-long skin was discovered on the Thames bank near Hammersmith Bridge.
Sandy the scavenger posted a picture of the skin on his Instagram, writing: ‘YIKES! Yesterday I spotted this large snake skin on the foreshore. I couldn’t believe my eyes. 😳 A very large snake shed its skin, and it washed in with the tide.
‘I felt like I was mudlarking along the Amazon River, not the Thames! I did look behind my back to make sure the snake wasn’t lurking behind me. I hope this snake skin isn’t evidence of more snakes living along the Thames.’
Boa constrictors can live to be 35 years old. They get their name from the way they kill their prey – by coiling around it and crushing it to death before swallowing it whole. Luckily, attacks on humans are pretty rare. The slithery fellows are also commonly kept as pets, you just want to make sure you never catch them sizing you up as dinner.
This isn’t the first time a Londoner has had a run-in with a massive vertebrate. In 2020, a five-foot boa constrictor was caught lurking around near Barnes Bridge in Chiswick. It turned out to be a pet snake gone rogue, and the RSPCA reunited it with its owner after it had been missing for two weeks.
So far the owner of the mysterious skin hasn’t been discovered, so it could still be out there. It’s probably quite hungry by now…
ICYMI: A large tortoise brought trains to a halt at Stanstead Airport.
London officially has the UK’s best rooftop bar, far above any snakes.