Excuse me, has anyone seen my boa constrictor?

AT ‘nine-foot long and as thick as your arm’, Bella the boa constrictor is a difficult creature to lose.

But police had to put out an alert with that description when her owner couldn’t find her anywhere at home.

Despite also claiming the snake was ‘docile’ and no danger to the public, Police Scotland’s ‘ninefoot’ description had people in Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, running to lock their windows and doors on Tuesday night.

News of the missing pet went viral on social media, with some posters alarmed at the news and others finding it hilarious.

Tina Gorrie advised people living in the area to ‘Go to bed with cycle clips around the ankles’.

Others made a joke of the police description. Danny Braidwood said: ‘This has made my day! A nine foot snake as thick as an arm on the loose. Police Scotland you have outdone yourselves.’

Bella was blissfully unaware of all the fuss she had caused. She was discovered having a snooze behind the cooker in the kitchen by her owner, having never left her house in Portree Avenue.

She had apparently slithered through a gap under the oven and through a crack into a hole in the wall next to a plug socket.

The tip of the reptile’s tail was finally spotted poking out of the crack.

The owner, a 26-year-old man who asked not to be named, said: ‘I’m not sure how she has managed to get so far down as it is a tiny hole and she is massive.

The house is a state as I turned the place upside down looking for her.

Needless to say, I am very relieved to have found her.’