Family Spots Something Slithering Across Their Yard—Then an X-Ray Reveals the Horrifying Secret Inside Its Swollen Belly

It began as an ordinary moment in a quiet New Jersey backyard.

Leslie Daley was watering flowers outside her family’s Freehold home when she noticed something moving across the property. It was long, muscular and unmistakably out of place.

A giant snake was slithering through the yard.

Before the family could fully process what they were seeing, the reptile disappeared through a hole beneath their shed. But it was not just the snake’s extraordinary size that made the encounter unsettling.

Something enormous was bulging from the middle of its body.

The Daleys soon learned that the creature hiding beneath their floorboards was an approximately 8-foot-long Burmese python—an exotic constrictor native to Southeast Asia, thousands of miles from suburban New Jersey.

A massive python with a swollen belly was found under a Freehold, New Jersey family’s shed.

What the python had swallowed would remain a mystery until rescuers captured it and veterinary staff took an X-ray.

The answer appeared on the screen in a ghostly outline: a large opossum, consumed whole.

Leslie’s husband, Ed Daley, told WABC that his wife first spotted the reptile while tending to her flowers. Once they realized it had slipped beneath the shed, the family contacted the Monmouth County SPCA.

Removing a python of that size from such a confined space would not be simple.

Animal-control officers arrived with help from a local contractor, who carefully pulled up sections of the shed’s floor. Beneath the boards, the snake’s patterned body stretched through the darkness, its swollen abdomen making escape into a narrow opening more difficult.

Video of the rescue captured the moment officers cautiously lifted the sprawling python from its hiding place. The handlers supported its heavy body while keeping control of its head, aware that even a nonvenomous snake of that size possesses tremendous strength.

Burmese pythons kill prey by constriction. They strike, wrap their bodies around an animal and tighten their coils before swallowing the victim whole. Their flexible jaws and expandable bodies allow them to consume animals far wider than their own heads.

The Freehold python’s last meal explained the dramatic swelling around its midsection. According to the Monmouth County SPCA, veterinary imaging confirmed that the shape belonged to an opossum.

An X-ray revealed the Burmese python devoured an opossum before it was captured.

The discovery also answered one question while creating several others.

How long had the snake been roaming through the area? Where had it come from? Did it escape from an enclosure, or had somebody deliberately released it?

Officials did not immediately identify an owner.

Burmese pythons are not native to New Jersey or anywhere else in the northeastern United States. They originate in the tropical and subtropical regions of Southeast Asia, where warm temperatures allow the reptiles to thrive.

The snakes can be legally kept in New Jersey with the appropriate permit, according to local reports. But their appearance in the wild creates risks for native animals, household pets and the snakes themselves.

New Jersey’s winters are dramatically different from the climate Burmese pythons evolved to survive. An escaped or abandoned snake may find food during warmer months, but cold temperatures can become deadly.

For the opossum discovered inside this python, the danger had already arrived.

Opossums are an established part of New Jersey’s ecosystem. They consume insects, carrion and other organic material while serving as prey for larger native predators. An exotic constrictor introduced into that environment can disrupt relationships that developed over generations.

The dangers presented by released exotic pets are visible on a far larger scale in Florida, where Burmese pythons have established breeding populations in and around the Everglades. The invasive snakes have consumed a wide range of native wildlife and become extremely difficult to control.

There is no indication that a breeding population exists in New Jersey. The Freehold discovery appears to involve an individual animal, and the python was successfully removed before it could disappear farther into the community.

It is now being kept in a secure enclosure under the care of an experienced snake handler. Officials are searching for a suitable long-term home where it can be managed safely.

The Monmouth County SPCA used the extraordinary rescue to issue an urgent warning to exotic-animal owners.