ANOTHER dead snake has been found in the Okehampton area. Peter Curry saw the 1.3 metre-long reptile on the evening of Tuesday March 13 as he was leaving Okehampton on the road to Follygate. The snake was lying in the central reservation of the A386 at Elmead Cross. He said: 'It caught my eye because of its colour. It was bright orange. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but as I drove past, I could see that it was a snake, and obviously not one native to this country. It wasn't squashed at all, but it was dead. It was strange because I'd just read about the other snake in the paper.' The snake was taken to Okeford Veterinary Centre where vet John Smallwood identified it as a male rat snake. Mr Smallwood said the snake appeared to be in good condition with no signs of disease. 'It's possible that it was just an escapee. They're long snakes but they're very slender, so they are prone to escaping. 'And they don't require the intensive heat of a vivarium, so people do have them just crawling around their homes,' he said. The snake's native home is the American Everglades, where it lives on beetles and small rodents. Mr Smallwood said that with the mild weather which West Devon has recently been enjoying, the snake could probably have survived for some time outdoors. He said: 'It might just be an escapee that got a bit cold, or it could have been hit by a car. 'Since it was found at the roadside, it's less likely to have been a malicious dumping.' The snake is the second to be found in as many weeks around Okehampton — a week ago a Boa Constrictor was discovered dead in the Okement.
