Deadly snake — with 2nd most toxic venom in world — found lurking under Australia mower
Ever since people started mowing their lawns, there has been a mountain of excuses for putting it off, like any other chore.
“It just rained outside” or “there isn’t enough gas in the mower,” someone might say while trying to delay the inevitable grass cutting.
For a man in a Blue Mountains town west of Sydney, Australia, he had good reason for leaving the mower in the driveway at the end of December: An extremely dangerous snake was coiled inside.
Troy Hovenden, or The Reptile Bloke, was called to a home on Dec. 30 when the homeowner looked under his old mower and found an eastern brown snake curled up under the hood, according to Hovenden’s Facebook posts and 9News.
“I have had one other instance personally that I can remember where a snake got inside a lawn mower,” Hovenden told the outlet. “It does happen from time to time, it’s a good place for them to hide and feel safe so it’s definitely something to be aware of.”
The homeowner said in a Facebook comment that the reptile wrangler was at his home in a matter of minutes, and the snake was safely removed from the mower shortly after.
Hovenden posted a video of the removal Dec. 30 on Facebook.
The homeowner avoided a potentially deadly situation, as eastern brown snakes are considered to have the second most toxic snake venom in the world, according to the Billabong Sanctuary in Townsville.
Eastern brown snakes, from the genus Pseudonaja, act like a cobra when they are threatened, the sanctuary said, including raising the front of their body and flattening and inflating their neck area while swaying side to side. Despite the resemblance, their name means “false cobra,” and they are from a different genus of venomous snakes with fixed fangs near the front of their jaws, according to the sanctuary.
The snakes, despite being relatively common, rarely bite people in Australia, and an existing anti-venom helps save the lives of those who do end up on the wrong end of the snakes’ fangs.
“This is in contrast to India, for example, where bites may reach one million a year, with over 50,000 deaths,” Bryan Fry, a herpetologist from the University of Queensland, told Australian Geographic. “Snake bites are very, very rare (in Australia) and often the fault of the person being bitten. Most bites occur when people are trying to kill a snake or show off.”
Hovenden told 9News after pulling the snake from the mower, it was safely relocated and released back into the wild.
The Blue Mountains are about a 45-mile drive west from Sydney, on the eastern coast of New South Wales.
This story was originally published January 1, 2025 at 1:01 PM with the headline "Deadly snake — with 2nd most toxic venom in world — found lurking under Australia mower."
