Python's Apple a day not enough to keep vet away

SMH

WIRED FOR SOUND: The snake that swallowed the iPod earphones.

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A pet python discovered it had bad taste in music after swallowing a pair of its owner's earphones, possibly confusing them with small eggs.

It might look like an advertisement for the Apple iPod, but the mishap meant the 84-gram children's python, named Pythagoras, had to have the white rubber and plastic removed by a vet.

The 60-centimetre snake tried the new dish after wrapping itself around the cords when out of the cage about seven weeks ago.

Owner Luke Nydam decided that since Pythagoras had just eaten dinner he would put it back in the cage and get the earphones, with remote control attached, later.

When Mr Nydam, who lives in Sydney, Australia, returned home from work the next day the earphones were gone and there were two distinct lumps in the snake.

"It's not something that you see everyday, is it?" Mr Nydam, 20, said. "She was looking pretty unwell, pretty fat. That's when I rang up the vet and they said, 'You better bring her in."'

Vet Alana Shrubsole-Cockwill from North Shore Veterinary Specialist Centre said they caught the earphones before they entered the intestines of the three-year-old snake and surgery was not needed.

Instead, they sedated it and used a set of alligator forceps to get the earphones out.

"When it came in we named it Apple. It was pretty odd, It's often parasites, pets not eating or [animals] who have been attacked [we deal with]. I've never seen this before," Dr Shrubsole-Cockwill said. "We thought maybe the earphones smelt like ear wax or she thought it was an egg."

Pythagoras has since made a full recovery but the earphones haven't.

"I chucked them out, they looked gross and were covered in gunk," Mr Nydam said.

"I'm trying to keep her away from foreign objects now. Lucky I pulled the iPod out [that night], otherwise I would have been in big trouble."

- © Fairfax NZ News