One of World's Deadliest Snakes Found Hiding in Toddler's Underwear Drawer

A snake hunter has shared the horrifying moment he found the world's second-most venomous snake in a toddler's underwear drawer.

Mark Pelley, based in Melbourne, Australia, catches snakes for a living, and recently he was called out to remove a 5-foot Eastern brown snake from a 3-year-old's bedroom.

Pelley filmed the moment he opened two drawers to find the snake curled up on top of folded garments. Behind the camera, Pelley can be heard saying, "A brown snake in an underwear drawer," before adding, "that's not something you see every day." The professional snake catcher has shared the footage online and racked up 30,000 views on Facebook.

The clip caption reads: "Mum went to get some clothes for her son and found a large 5 foot brown snake instead. We figured out what happened. She carried in folded washing yesterday and as she was taking clothes from clothes line, brown snake crawled into it.

"Then without realizing, she put a bundle of folded clothes containing the world's 2nd most venomous snake into her son's drawers," the caption adds.

Pelley was called out to remove the serpent from their home. In the video's comment section, Pelley says: "The [snakes] weigh next to nothing and seriously - this can happen to anyone. I've seen people carry brown snakes in their handbag or otherwise shopping bags."

The Australian Museum website says, "the Eastern Brown Snake can cope and even thrive in areas of human disturbance, and its natural range happens to include some of the most populated parts of the country, this species is probably encountered more than any other type of snake."

One bite can lead to death, but this is extremely rare, according to a retrospective study titled: "Incidence of fatal snake bite in Australia." The group of researchers looked at data from 2000 to 2016 and found that 2.2 deaths per year were attributed or precipitated by a snake bite.

At the time of writing, Pelley's video has amassed 214 likes and 125 comments.

One user wrote: "I will need to check my washing basket more closely. I would pass out if this happened to me."

"Easily mistaken for a belt," posted another.

A third comment read: "I was looking for an excuse to not do my laundry and I believe I just found it."

While uncommon, it isn't unusual for snakes to end up in public places in Australia, and previously Newsweek shared the moment one was removed from a school.

Newsweek is waiting for Mark Pelley to provide a comment.

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