When browsing through thrift stores and charity shops, you can often be lucky enough to discover some incredible finds - and bargains - but one thing you likely don’t expect to find in between all the vintage furniture and old books is a snake. This rather unexpected turn of events is exactly what happened earlier this week, when staff at a thrift shop in Dordrecht uncovered a ball python in between all the donated clothes. 

Shop workers discover slithery sssurprise in clothing bins

Workers at the Opnieuw & Co store in Dordrecht (located about 25 kilometres southeast of Rotterdam) were suitably shocked to find a white ball python - otherwise known as a royal python - when sorting through clothing donations earlier this week. 

"At first it was thought that it was a toy snake, it's not that big either," store manager Marcel van Gogh told the AD. “But that was not the case.” The staff quickly made a call to the local animal shelter Louterbloemen, who dispatched a team and an ambulance to pick up the snake. 

Pet owner and missing python reunited

Ball pythons are nonvenomous snakes that can grow up to a maximum length of 182 centimetres. They’re native to West and Central Africa - not the Netherlands - meaning the one discovered in Dordrecht was a pet. 

After Louterbloemen put out a call on social media to let the pet owner know their snake had been found, it luckily didn’t take long for them to come forward and collect their missing pet from the shelter on Thursday. Workers at Opnieuw & Co still aren’t sure how the python ended up in their clothing bin: “Perhaps someone wanted to get rid of the snake, or the snake accidentally crawled into such a bag and ended up with us," Van Gogh speculates, “but it's still a guess, of course."

Thumb: Deny Andrean via Shutterstock.com.