A COLD-BLOODED fugitive was last week captured lurking in the bathroom of a Waterside couple's home.
Maisy the corn snake had been on the run for a year after escaping from her glass tank in August 2008.
"We woke up one morning and the glass partition on its cage had been pulled aside and the snake was out. We didn't have a clue where it was," expl
ained owner Gareth Mellon.
But incredibly the two-year-old corn snake turned up alive and well in the Avondale Avenue home of the Sentinel advertising executive and resident herpetologist last Tuesday night.
Gareth's son, Jack and wife, Glenda had always held out hope of her turning up safely but after fourteen months missing, fears were growing that she might have perished during the inclement Londonderry winter.
Amazingly, these concerns were dispelled last week when amidst house renovations Maisy turned up in rude health entwined around plumbing fixtures behind the bathroom sink.
"Basically we were getting work done to the house," explained Gareth. "I was in the bathroom last night and I looked down behind the toilet and there she was."
Maisy's big comeback was certainly a relief for Gareth and family who were not long preparing a feast for the crawling king snake.
"We knew it couldn't survive outside so we thought that if it was still alive it had to be in the house somewhere," he said.
"But we didn't think it could survive this long. We sort of thought that whenever the building works were being done it might appear somewhere and then Andrew McDonald over in Furless Friends told us that it can survive for up to a year," he added.
Apparently the slippery customer had wrapped itself around a pair of hot water pipes in the bathroom of her adopted home.
"They hibernate. It must have just shut the system down. It was well fed. We fed it dead mice every Saturday. But it's amazing that it could have survived for a full year without eating. We couldn't believe it.
"It tried to get back up the cistern thing where it must have been hiding. It had wrapped itself around the hot water pipe behind the sink - in there," said Gareth.
Maisy originally escaped on August 29, 2008, and evaded capture until October 27, 2009 - an incredible fourteen months on the run and without food.
Despite anxiety over her safety the calm prediction of reptile expert Andrew McDonald, owner of Furless Friends on Carlisle Road, proved correct.
Last September he said: "If they escape they generally will stay around the house because of the heat and warmth."
He said then that it was still quite possible Maisy would turn up safe and well and thus it proved.
"Corn snakes originate from North America and can go into hibernation mode," he said. "It is not unknown for corn snakes to survive for up to six months without feeding."
