Russians watched in astonishment as a two-metre python slithered into a stationary car stuck, like them, in a city traffic jam.
The Interfax news service said the snake had escaped from its owner’s home in Samara, a southern city on the River Volga, and headed out into the Monday morning commuter rush.
Management at the city’s zoo said later: “During a traffic jam the python slipped into the engine bay of a car
. People in nearby vehicles saw it and alerted the driver.”
The zoo sent specialists to rescue the snake then set about identifying its owner – but he arrived on Tuesday to collect his pet and identified it by patterns of missing scales.
“The python was in bad shape,” a zoo employee told the agency. “It was lucky that there was a traffic jam or it would have been killed.”
The reticulated python is native to south-east Asia and can grow to more than nine metres long.