iStockphoto / andi muh ridwan
A pet snake was returned home after it was missing for a year and it happened in the most unlikely of ways. In fact, it sounds like something straight out of a kid’s movie and not real life.
The pet corn snake, a female named Agnus, went missing over a year ago after it escaped from its owners homes. Corn snakes are native to the southeastern US, various parts of Mexico, and the Cayman Islands. They are most certainly not native to Spennymoor, England where the snake was found on a rooftop after it was dropped off by a passing crow.
John Lawson is an inspector with the United Kingdom’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). He received a call in March that a 3-foot snake was on a homeowner’s roof after a passing crow dropped the snake as it flew by.
As it turned out, the roof the crow dropped the snake on was the next door neighbor of the person who lost their pet snake a year prior. John Lawson told the BBC “After I rescued the snake, a resident living nearby came over and was absolutely delighted as it was her missing pet from a year ago called Agnus.”
Corn snakes, while able to survive on the ‘cooler side’ for snakes, still need a temperature range of 75°F to 92°F in order to survive. The ‘average’ temperatures in Spennymoor, England come nowhere even close to those ideal temperature ranges needed for a corn snake to survive. July is the warmest month of the year in Spennymoor with an average temperature range of 68-53°F.
There are heat waves to be sure, but that’s the warmest it gets there on average and it doesn’t even sniff the lowest range the corn snake needs. Presumably, the corn snake didn’t stray too far from the home and found some sort of heat source to survive like a home’s A/C unit, an electrical transformer, or something of the like that was putting off heat. It would also explain how the pet snake returned home when it was dropped off by a crow as it would have been relatively near the house when the crow gave up on trying to fly off with the snake.
The RSPCA inspector, John Lawson, spoke with a vet after Agnus the missing corn snake was found. Agnus had a respiratory infection from the cold weather and was treated before being released home.
While at the veterinarian receiving care, the vet provided some insight into how the snake might survived. John Lawson told the BBC “The vet believes Agnus had gone into brumation mode, similar to hibernation, and her body had shut down in order to survive. It really is amazing that she survived for so long without heat – and also survived after a crow had decided to try to fly off with her.”
That would explain a lot but it seems wild the snake could go into brumation mode for over a year!