A small Asian snake was found on a Qantas Boeing 747 airliner in Australia causing 370 passengers to be grounded overnight Monday according to the Associated Press.
"The department of agriculture is looking into how the snake came to be on the plane, but isn't able to speculate at this time," the company said in a statement.
Airline staff found the mandarin rat snake in a passenger cabin near the door late Sunday before passengers were scheduled to board the plane and head to Tokyo from Sydney International Airport. The reptile measured 8 inches.
Affected passengers were given hotel rooms and departed Sydney via a replacement plane Monday. The original jet was disinfected and checked for other snakes before it would be given clearance to fly again, the AP reported. Quarantine officials also took the snake to be analyzed after it had arrived off a flight the day before from Singapore.
The particular snake species typically grows to an average of four feet and was euthanized because it has pests and diseases which are foreign to Australia. While the snake was not a threat to humans in Australia, it had the possibility to cause lots of ecological issues in the country's environment if it had left the plane with someone the AP reported.
In January, a python, measuring 10 feet was able to hang onto a wing of a Qantas flight from northeast Australia to Papua New Guinea. While the creature did not survive the flight, it was still clinging to the wing of the aircraft when the two-hour flight concluded.
Mandarin rat snakes are common in China, and have also been seen in Buma, India, Taiwan, and Vietnam according to exclusivesnakes.com. The species also live at elevations below 500 meters or feet in some areas of its range.
