Wild scenes have been captured of an enormous snake in a Queensland backyard shifting its weighty body from a home’s roof into a tree.
The carpet python made for a shocking sight for onlookers who filmed its sneaky manoeuvre, which has since gone viral on TikTok.
“How will we get him away,” a child was heard saying, before an adult replied, “We won’t”.
“That is feral isn’t it,” the woman added, with another chiming in to say, “They’re freaky aren’t they”.
The child then threw support behind the snake catching abilities of his dad, saying: “Dad would be able to catch him”.
A man, presumably his dad, quickly corrected him by confessing, “No, dad’s scared of snakes”.
The snake was then shown winding its neck around the tree which prompted terrified screams from inside the home.
The girthy creature, estimated to be about five metres long, slowly slithered its way from one tree to the next, leaving its audience anticipating a loud smack when it’s tail dropped from the roof.
To everyone’s surprise, the bang never came.
“Oh it’s got muscle! See I would have thought it would have dropped,” one of the women said.
“It’s all one big muscle,” the man said.
When the comment, “he’s quite beautiful isn’t he” was made, it was swiftly shut down by several in the room who responded with a strong, “no”.
More than 18 million people have watched the video since it was uploaded on Monday, with more than 50,000 people leaving comments and over one million hitting like.
Viewers found it hard to believe the animal was a carpet python, with many likening it to an anaconda and others joking it seemed more similar to a dinosaur.
“Carpet snake? Ma’am that is a dinosaur,” one person wrote in a comment.
The species has been known to weigh up to 15 kilos and grow to between four and five metres long.
Snake Catcher Dan, from the Sunshine Coast, told Yahoo News Australia it was not uncommon to see carpet pythons in the trees but it was more common for them to be hunting on the ground.
“It’s quite common to see carpet pythons in trees, either soaking up the sun, avoiding dogs or people or hunting birds and possums. I find more pythons on the ground hunting than I do in the trees, but it’s not uncommon,” he said.
Dan added that despite their intimidating appearance, snakes weren’t typically interested in eating humans.
“Any snake big or small is not dangerous to people if we leave them alone. In saying that, unfortunately sometimes people don’t notice the snake and get too close causing the snake to strike out in defence,” he said.