It doesn't take a grown man to wrangle snakes. In Maryborough, Australia, a 3-year-old named Haileigh has been handling a giant python belonging to her stepdad.
Named Murray, the 3.75-meter-long coastal carpet python is nearly four times the girl's length. But that hasn't stopped her from posing for pictures with the non-venomous creature – and even taking it to show and tell.
Haileigh's stepdad, Brendan McGuire, acquired the 10-year-old snake in high school, and tells Australia's Courier Mail that the snake is anything but scary. "Kids just take to Murray," he says. "Once you let them know it's a pet they can't get enough of him."
For her part, Haileigh says Murray is "very friendly," just a little cumbersome. "Sometimes I have to try to pick him up to get him off the concrete, but he's a little bit heavy for me." Her mom Leaha helps her out, cleaning Murray's aquarium and helping to feed him with a steady diet of small mammals and reptiles.
Though Haileigh and Murray seem to share quite a bond, wildlife experts do urge people to keep their distance from snakes of all shapes and sizes, the Courier Mail reports. Just last year in Florida, a toddler was killed by her family's pet python when the creature slithered out of its holding tank and into her room, strangling her.
For now, Haileigh and her family seem quite comfortable with their docile reptile around. So do we have another Bindi Irwin on our hands? Time will tell!
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