Early last month, a woman in South Africa walked into her kitchen and noticed what looked like a patterned scarf curled up in the shadows beneath her counter. Thinking someone had dropped it, she bent down to pick it up.
That’s when the “scarf” moved.
“[She] saw this odd-looking thing laying in the shadows,” wildlife conservationist Corné Uys told The Dodo. “She bent down to pick it up, only to realize it wasn’t a scarf at all — it was a full-grown puff adder.”
Startled but thinking quickly, the woman backed away and contacted Uys for help.
Puff adders are highly venomous vipers, recognizable by their triangle-shaped heads and yellow-brown patterns. Common throughout South Africa, they play an important role in local ecosystems by keeping rodent populations in check.
Uys believes this particular snake wandered in from a nearby nature reserve, likely searching for a cool spot to escape the heat — and found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When Uys arrived, he carefully secured the snake and transported him back to the nearby mountains. There, in familiar terrain, the puff adder wasted no time disappearing into the tall grass and brush, returning to the wild where he belonged.
His kitchen adventure behind him, the snake slipped back into the reserve — and the woman can now walk into her kitchen without worrying her accessories might suddenly have fangs.
To follow more of Uys’ rescues, you can find him on Facebook.
