On Wednesday, a man identified as Stu shared a post on the Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers Facebook page, writing, “Has There Been Any Snakes In Our Roof?! Well to be completely honest, there have been a couple…at least!”
He explained that, while conducting an inspection at a family residence, his colleague, Dave, found around 50 snake skins on the family’s roof space.
“How is this haul from Dave when he conducted a roof inspection yesterday?” he asked, attaching two arguably creepy pictures to the post.
In one of them, Dave is seen holding around 30 snake skins, both of his hands full of long strips of muddy-colored skin. In the other picture, a child is seen holding a bunch of skins, showing off the scales and patterns of the abandoned hides.
“He brought down over 30 snake skins out of the family’s roof space, and there was probably another 20 skins up there,” Stu added to the post. “The kids at the house loved it and had plenty of questions to ask Dave about snakes.”
While a few users joked about “making your own belts” with the discarded skins, others had genuine questions. The post has since received thousands of comments, likes, and shares.
“Can you tell what kind of snakes they’re from? How often do snakes shed - are those all from different snakes or are some from the same snake shedding multiple times?” asked one user.
Stu also did his best to quell any fears about snakes hiding in the homes of readers, saying: “Snakes are great to have in your roof as they eat all the rodents. Who doesn’t love free pest control!!”
Snakes are common enough in the area that Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Science categorizes five zones of land and the details of different snakes commonly found in each zone. Snakes are protected under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 and it is an offense to kill, injure or take snakes from the wild, it also says.
A few of the most commonly encountered species in the Sunshine Coast area are the carpet python, common tree snake, keelback, yellow-faced whip snake, white-crowned snake, and eastern small-eyed snake, according to the list.
Snakes shed their skins 12 times a year to accommodate their growing bodies and also because the process removes harmful parasites, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. This process is called ecdysis. The snake rubs its head on something abrasive—like a rock—to tear open the outer layer and then discards it.
In April, the company shared a video in which they found the skin of 9.8 feet long carpet snake, but with no live snake anywhere to be found.
Let’s hope in both these cases, the reptiles decided to slither on to greener pastures away from creeped out humans.
