What should you do when you walk into the kitchen to find an egg-thieving snake hanging from your spice cabinet?  Film it of course! That's exactly what this North Carolina home-owner did when a rat snake dropped in for a visit.

"It was a run-of-the-mill Sunday afternoon [when] a noise in the kitchen made us look up at the spice cabinet ... where THIS was descending toward a basket of fresh eggs on the counter!" says YouTube user Laura Neff.  

The egg thief in the video is an adult western rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus), a species that's widespread across the US. The snakes are not venomous, and as Neff points out, they're actually handy visitors to have hanging around thanks their appetite for rodents, which they kill by constriction. Their diet makes them especially beneficial residents on farms since they help control pest populations. 

In case you're wondering, Neff says the snake was allowed to finish its misbegotten meal before the homeowners gently persuaded it to move along. "Using two brooms, a whole lot of patience, nudging and encouraging, we finally convinced it that going out the open window was a MUCH better option than slithering away behind the fridge!" she recounts. 

As one YouTube commentator wisely points out, the lesson here is that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. 

Top header image: ShowPaul, Flickr