Owners reunited with Python found in east end Toronto sewer overnight

It's the stuff of urban legends and B-movies.

A hot summer night. A sewer. A huge snake.

And now it looks like this movie will have a happy ending.

Owners have been reunited withMonty, their 11-month-oldball python that wasfound poking out of a sewer grate near Victoria Park and Danforth avenues in the east end of Toronto just after midnight Tuesday.

Monty had been missing since the night theToronto Raptors won their firstNBA championship on June 13, accordingto the snake's ownerSamantha Sannella.

Since that night, Montyhad been surviving on its own.

"We're happy he's OK," Sannella said. "We were really worried."

Monty was spotted by a passerby who saw the snake near an Esso gas stationand called police.

It had travelled about three kilometres from home.

A worker at the gas station said he saw the snake himself after two customers told him it was outside.

"It's very beautiful," said KranthiNakkala.

Toronto Fire Services showed up soon after, andwere able to remove the grate and get the snake into a bag before transporting it to police headquarters, where it washanded it over to animal services at the City of Toronto.

Sannella said the snake seemed mostly unharmed, except for possible damage to his skin.

'Oh my God, where's Monty?'

Sannella's18-year-old son, who purchased the four-foot-long snake in November,had a party with his friends the night of the championship win at their family home, near Coxwell and Danforth avenues.

Duringthe party, Sannellasays she thinksthe lid of Monty's container was accidentally left open, and the snakeslipped into a nearby sewer grate, but added that "there's no way of knowing" exactly what happened.

When she went downstairs the next day, she noticed that the snake's container was empty.

Sannella said she immediately went to her son and said, "Oh my God, where's Monty?"

"Then we went on a frantic search for him."

Sannella said thefamily had been trying a variety of techniques to find Monty, includingkeeping the air conditioning highin the hopes ofdrawing it to aheating pad, and even playing "snake charmer music."

Sannellawas notified of the sighting after someoneposted a picture of Monty on Twitter, and a colleague askedif it was hers.

"Everyone at my office knows that the snake had been missing," she said.

Soon after she got in touch with animal control and scheduled the reunion.

When Monty isn't on adventures in Toronto sewers, it lives in anaquarium, and eats a frozen rat once a week.

"It has a beautiful aquarium it's actually quite huge, with all kindsof fun stuff with it to play with."

It doesn't like to be played with too much, Sannella added, and "generally likes to stay curled up in a ball in the dark."

Now Sannella says she's thinking of writing a kids book about her snake's adventure, with the titleAdventures of Monty the Python.

A statement from the City of Torontolaid out therules about what kinds of snakes people can own.

The cityforbids any snake that reaches an adult size of more than three metres, or nine feet, as well as all poisonous or venomous animals.

Ball pythons typically grow to a length between three and four feet, or 1.2 metres, and are non-venomous constrictors.