The serpent, later identified as a two-year-old boa constrictor – native to Latin America – was spotted by children on rocks by the Arve on Quai Charles Page in Plainpalais, La Tribune de Genève reported on Tuesday. 

 

Their parents raised the alarm and three members of the Geneva fire service (SIS) managed to successful trap the animal. 

 

On Monday the snake was delivered to a vivarium in the Geneva suburb of Meyrin. 

 

“At the moment he’s doing ok,” Raoul Gonzalez, a keeper at the vivarium, told the paper, adding that the snake had clearly eaten something but they would have to wait a few days to know what that was.

 

At just a metre in length, the boa is only around two years old, he said. As an adult these snakes can grow to be around three metres long.

 

It is thought that the wily serpent must have escaped from a vivarium or private owner.