A corn snake was found on the street in Genoa. The animal probably escaped from a private home since this species is not present in nature in Italy. The announcement was published yesterday afternoon, Wednesday 1 February, by the Campomorone wild animal recovery center managed by theEnpa of Genoa.

The reptile crawled into the street, in via Storace in the populous district of Sampierdarena, and made several passers-by jump who, overcoming their amazement, called the local police. The Police have reached an agreement with Cras for the recovery and transfer.Snakes are wild animals never domesticated by man and, although they must remain in nature, there are those who force them into display cases and terrariums, the hypothesis of the volunteers is therefore that the animal may have escaped by mistake from the case maybe while cleaning the tub but it wouldn’t even be the first case of abandonment of snakes.

Indeed, last summer in Genoa there was talk of “urban jungle” after the street release of a series of Boa consticorthe discovery of another reptile in the garden of a shop in the center and a cat snake in the port. In none of these cases had any reptilian contact persons come forward and the snakes are now found located in the regional centres suitable to receive them.

«Given the small size, we are confident that someone has mistakenly escaped – write on social media from Cras – the owner is invited to contact us as soon as possible to begin the return process. But at the moment no one has shown up yet.

Unfortunately the snake of the grain (Pantherophis guttate) is among the most traded reptile species in our country but is native to America. Apparently resembles the copperhead snake (Agkistrodon contortrix) which is poisonous and for this reason is mistakenly killed. However, we must not be misled: the corn snake is not poisonous and rather is harmless.

These animals, in addition to being very beautiful, are also useful to humans. Their name, in fact, derives from the fact that they can often be found in the granaries of the farms looking for succulent rodents to eat, thus helping to keep populations under control of these mammals.