A stock image of a reticulated python. An Oklahoma neighborhood reported half its cats missing after a 13-foot python moved under a nearby mobile home.
Mark Kostich/iStock/Getty Images
A 13-foot snake has been living on a steady diet of cats since moving into a trailer park in Oklahoma. The python, thought to have been a pet, may have doubled in size in just five months. It has a mouth “the size of your foot” and a body “like Mike Tyson’s bicep,” said local officials.
Animal control is hunting down a 13-foot-long python thought to have eaten half of the neighborhood cats since it showed up in an Oklahoma trailer park.
The animal appeared in Oklahoma City’s Burntwood Mobile Home Park about five months ago, Oklahoma news channel KFOR reported.
Since then it’s been eating opossums, rats, and cats in its lair under a mobile home, the channel reported.
Trevor Bounds, an animal-control expert tasked with finding the snake, said it had a mouth “the size of your foot” and a body “like Mike Tyson’s bicep but 13 feet long,” per KFOR.
The python is believed to have doubled in size on his steady cat diet, according to another Oklahoma City channel, News9.
The leading theory is that it was a pet that was either abandoned or escaped, per News9.
People in the neighborhood have been warned to stay away.
“It’s kind of scary,” said Shandi Mosley, a local Parent, per Fox25.
“You don’t want to think about it getting into your house. But what if it did get into your house? It’s a really big snake,” Shandi said.
Bounds said that the animal has likely become more aggressive after months of fighting its prey.
“The constricting is what can be the dangerous part,” said Bounds per KFOR.
“You can’t have small children or pets going near this thing that’s why this should’ve been tackled a whole lot sooner,” he said.
He’s now rigged the house with trapping equipment and cameras and is confident he’ll be able to catch the snake soon, per Fox25.