Skin From 'A Really Large Snake' Found in Swampscott

Photo: Stock photo from Wikimedia Commons (This is NOT an image of any reptile found in Swampscott)

Swampscott’s Animal Control Officer Diane Treadwell knows that no two days are the same when it comes to her job and sometimes the details residents report don’t give her a particularly clear idea of what she is walking into when she responds to a call.

So when she got a call Sept. 1 about “large snake skins” in a wooded area near the center of town, she headed to the scene expecting to find some average-sized snake skins and a caller with a slightly skewed sense of “large.”

Instead, Treadwell said, she was “blown away” by what she found.

Treadwell recovered a fresh snake skin from a “really large snake”; so large, in fact, that she sent photos to a reptile expert for an opinion about what kind of snake could have shed the skin.

“The consensus was it was either a boa constrictor or a Burmese python,” Treadwell said, adding that the snake who shed that skin was easily 10 feet long and probably longer.

Treadwell said she has searched the area multiple times over the past week and hasn’t found any additional signs that a reptile that large has taken up residence in Swampscott. She said it’s possible someone was playing a prank and left the skin where it would be found.

The other possibility, Treadwell said, is that someone released the snake or it escaped from its owner’s home, but there haven’t been any reports of that in the area.

If there is a boa constrictor or Burmese python in the area, it won’t survive the Massachusetts winter, Treadwell said, stressing that anyone who spots the snake or signs of it should immediately call Swampscott Animal Control.