Bruce Ackerman / Ocala Star-Banner
In Oxford, Fla., police remove a Burmese python from a home, where it escaped from a terrarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl in her bedroom on July 1, 2009.
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Big snake sighted in Levittown?
Bucks County may have another snake scare.
Yesterday around noon, an 8-to-10-foot snake was seen slithering across Snowball Drive in Levittown.
Or at least that's what a witness told police.
In June of 2007, in Bristol, about five miles south, a nine-foot albino python was caught, and a 12-foot boa constrictor or python was reportedly hiding in a crawl space - and possibly eating newborn kittens.
The latest snake, described as resembling a python, went into a small wooded area near the intersection with Shell Flower Road, perhaps headed toward Mill Creek, according to the witness.
"We went out and looked around and didn't see the snake. Didn't even see a slither mark," said Officer Dan Deacon of Middletown Township police.
"We had one sighting of it," said Deacon, who added this was the first big-snake sighting reported during his 28 years on the force.
No one has reported a snake missing either.
Yesterday, police were thinking, "maybe it's possible somebody is going to come home from work at the end of the day and find their cage open, but no one has called so far," he said this morning.
"Really not much to give you, but our concern is little children and domestic pets," he said.
Last week in Florida, a 2-year-old girl was fatally strangled in her home by a her family's pet python, which was about eight feet long, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
It apparently escaped from a living-room aquarium.
Florida officials couldn't remember another case of a of a nonvenomous snake killing anyone.
So far, there's been no corroborating evidence in Bucks County.
"No chihuahaus missing, or anything like that," Deacon said.
Contact staff writer Peter Mucha at 215-854-4342 or pmucha@phillynews.com.
