Under the hood: 10-foot Burmese python found in Florida car

DANIA BEACH, Fla. — Forget about horsepower or a tiger in your tank. A Mustang in South Florida had a snake under its hood.

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Call it an ignition coil. Wildlife authorities in Florida were called to a Dania Beach auto repair shop on Thursday morning after a Burmese python was found curled on top of the Mustang’s engine bay, WSVN reported.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said the snake was spotted at Tigertail Industrial Park just before 10 a.m.

“It was a big snake,” Gerard Doffay told WSVN. "That thing had a girth of about 7 inches.”

Burmese pythons are an invasive species mostly found in the Everglades. Some pythons measuring more than 15 feet long have been caught in the Everglades by snake hunters.

On Oct. 2, two Florida snake hunters caught a Burmese python that measured a state record of 18 feet, 9.25 inches long.

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According to officials, the reptile was spotted Thursday after a person at the auto repair shop opened the hood of the Mustang when the check engine light went on, WSVN reported.

The car owner ran next door, and Doffay offered to help.

“I thought, ‘OK, I’ll go and help them. I’ll yank it out from under the hood of their car,’” Doffay told WSVN. “I wasn’t expecting that python underneath the hood of the car.”

Wildlife officials were able to extricate the reptile from the car.

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“He grabbed it by the back of the head,” Doffay told WSVN. “He started pulling it towards him, and I saw an opportunity to help and get it out from underneath the sway bar, so we grabbed it out. By that time, it was around his hands. I had to help pull his hands out from inside the coils, and we tried putting it in the bag three or four times. Eventually, it took four people.”

A video posted on social media showed the FWC officer pulling the snake out of the car. It was wrapped up and taken away, WTVJ reported.

Doffay said he believed the snake got under the hood because the car was in the parking lot of the auto body shop, and speculated the reptile slithered over from a nearby lake.

“I think that they’re going to be possibly a lot of dogs and cats going missing in residential areas because they’re obviously getting closer,” Doffay told WSVN.

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