He Sat on the Toilet at Dawn. Suddenly, a 'Nip'

An elderly Austrian man had an unpleasant surprise waiting for him while answering nature's call early Monday: a python, in his toilet. The man, identified by the BBC as 65-year-old Walter Erhart, tells the broadcaster that he "went to the toilet as usual" in his Graz apartment around 6am on Monday, "switched on the light, turned, sat down as I always did"—and then "suddenly felt a nip" in his genital area. Police in the province of Styria say that nip was from a 5 1/4-foot albino reticulated python hanging out in the bowl, an escapee from the apartment of Erhart's 24-year-old neighbor, per the AP. A reptile expert retrieved the python from Erhart's toilet, cleaned it up, and returned it to its owner. Erhart was said to have suffered just minor injuries.

Police think the python may have ended up in the drainpipes of its owner's apartment and then made its way into Erhart's bathroom. They note that the neighbor keeps a total of 11 nonvenomous constrictor snakes, as well as a gecko. He's under investigation on suspicion of causing bodily harm by negligence. Meanwhile, back in the States, the public is breathing a sigh of relief in Baton Rouge after a Burmese python named Cara was found early Thursday, two days after she escaped from her enclosure inside Louisiana's largest shopping mall, per WPLG. Cara, described as a "nonpoisonous" and "very sweet" snake, slithered out of her home in the Mall of Louisiana's Blue Zoo on Tuesday; the zoo shut down during the search for Cara, though the mall remained open. She was recaptured just after 4am on Thursday. (More python stories.)