A Beaconsfield family was delighted and shocked after their pet snake thought to be dead returned home.
Vanessa Stotter wasn’t keen on getting a snake in the first place, and it took her years to come around the idea of the unusual pet.
She decided finally to give in, and surprised Rhianna for her 14th birthday nearly two years ago with a snake she had long wanted.
Rhianna named the family’s new pet, a corn snake, as Levi.
Vanessa said: “The first night we had him he escaped!
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“He’s two-years-old, and he’s been missing all that time.”
Out of the blue on Friday May 13 their young neighbour knocked on Vanessa’s door.
He had found Levi in the undergrowth across the road near Shephard’s Close in Beaconsfield, and brought the runaway back in a pot.
Vanessa said: “It wasn’t an unlucky Friday for us!
“He was just walking by and saw him.
“Levi has grown long but he’s not very fat at the moment.”
“I phone the pet shop I got him from, and told them.
“They said they can stay in the world for years and years, it would have burrowed himself down and eaten insect.”
Rhianna was happy and surprised to see her long-lost pet back in his terrarium, who had been presumed dead.
She said: “I told people I had a snake for a day, and then he went missing, and some people at school kept saying he will die.
“We don’t know how he got out.”
The family had kept his terrarium, and had thought of getting another snake.
However, they now have “no plans to get more snakes,” mother Vanessa said.
The lucky corn snake will now be fed lots of frozen mice from a pet shop to get him grow bigger, Rhianna explained.
She wasn’t grossed out by his diet because it’s “part of life”.
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Rhianna said: “I’m the only one with a snake in my school.
“I take him out of the cage, sit with him. But he can’t do any tricks!”
Corn snakes are found in the wild in North America in southeastern and central US, and they feed on small prey like frogs and mice.
Sadly, the harmless snake is often confused with the venomous copperhead snake, and killed as a result.
The RSPCA estimated corn snakes can grow up to 150 cm in length, and their lifespan is around 10 to 15 years.
What Levi got up to on his two-year adventure remains a mystery.
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