Dentist claims responsibility for giant albino pythons that appeared near Arizona intersection

First, the Arizona firefighters rescued a 10-foot albino python from downtown Scottsdale, a city in the northeast Phoenix area, at the end of July. The crew who found it was surprised — the animal was a far cry from the rattlesnakes the fire department typically relocated on the northern outskirts of town.

“Most of the crew was a little intimidated by the snake,” Capt. Matt Perry said in a statement at the time, according to the Arizona Republic, “but fortunately one of the members had once had one as a pet and was comfortable handling it and assured everyone it was safe to handle.” The firefighters handed the snake over to the Phoenix Herpetelogical Society for safekeeping.

Almost a month later there was another one. It, too, was a large albino python – 9 feet long – at the same intersection.

And the snakes kept coming. The third and final serpent was a different species from the first two. This boa constrictor was no shrimp either, a 7-footer spotted in the same area by a woman emptying her trash. The snake was found Monday night.

“It was kind of exciting. My first thing was, is it aggressive? Can I touch it?” Kelly Ranft, the firefighter who rescued the boa, told ABC 15. “So I walked up, petted it – it seemed fine.” This snake, like the others, were given to the herpetological society.

Neither boas, from South America, nor Burmese pythons, native to Southeast Asia, are adapted to handle Arizona’s high, dry heat. “In our temperatures, that’s a death warrant for these animals,” Russ Johnson, Phoenix Herpetological Society president, told Arizona’sKPHO.

The rash of rescues raised the fire department’s suspicions that an owner was purposefully letting the snakes go. On Wednesday, the department said on Facebook, the person to whom the snakes belonged came forward. The man, identified by KPHO only as a local dentist, had previously claimed ownership of only the 10-foot python. He later came forward to claim the other animals.

[Poisonous cobra caught. You may now go outside, California!]

“The owner runs a dental lab,” the herpetological society’s Debbie Gibson told CNN. At his office, the dentist had an enclosure for snakes, but he claimed an attempt to renovate it left an opening to escape. The other tenants in the building are not enthralled with the serpentine arrangement, Gibson said to CNN, so the man will have to keep the animals elsewhere.

These are not the only exotic snakes to make headlines after cutting loose. In late August in Houston, game wardens caught a 10-foot king cobra. Sightings of a large snake also captivated a Maine town this summer, with a perplexing anaconda skin offering the most recent evidence of a limbless visitor to the far north.