The nightmarish surprise fell upon a family in Brisbane's Kenmore Hills community. The family was quick to seek professional help from officials with Snake Catchers Brisbane, but once officials arrived, rather than whisking the pythons away, snake catcher Lana Field opted to pull out her phone and record the brawling males to provide an educational moment.
"People often mistake this as mating, but it is combat," Field explains during a Facebook Live stream. "So they'll wrap around each other wrestling, to compete and see who is the strongest, and that will give them the right to pursue the female that's obviously in the area."
She went on to say that the "naughty" snakes came crashing through the ceiling after the duct cover could no longer bear the weight of the dueling reptiles. "As you can see, we're in a vacant bedroom, and you can see a duct cover because they have pushed their way through from the ceiling and left a bit of a mess," she said.
"They can continue like this for hours until one is exhausted and feels like he's never going to win the battle," Field added, before noting that the two brawlers were quite small. She later indicated that had the snakes not been evenly matched in size, the fight would've been squashed sooner, with the larger opponent biting the other.
For much of the recording, the snakes are seen wrestling and pushing one another onto the ground near a bedroom closet as they occasionally hiss at each other. While Fields does eventually end the livestream and remove the fighters from the home, one question remained unanswered: Where is the lady snake hiding? In the ceiling? Walls? Toilet bowl?
The world may never know until she either comes crashing through another portion of the ceiling or makes an appearance at another home in the community.
With September being mating season for snakes in Australia, experts are strongly urging untrained locals not to remove any reptiles they find in their homes themselves, lest they get bitten.
"They are hungry and probably a bit grumpy… we find most of the time when people get hurt by snakes they are either trying to kill them or catch them," Deb Kelly, a snake catcher in South Australia, told Seven News. "Virtually everywhere we've got snakes — all through the suburbs, all through the hills… anywhere in South Australia, you'll find snakes."
Kelly suggested that if residents get bitten, they should prepare for the worst scenario possible. "Assume it is venomous and that you are going to die if you don't get medical assistance," she said.
A total of three people have died from snake bites in Australia so far this year, according to Seven News. Two of the deaths were caused by eastern brown snakes, an extremely venomous species native to Australia.
