In a scene straight from the nightmares of everyone scared of snakes, a man who was struggling to flush his toilet found the blockage when a 50lb python peeked its head out of the U-bend.

Chang Lantanoy, from Thailand, shared pictures of the unwelcome visitor in his toilet to a Facebook group named "All About Thailand Snakes" on March 17, showing the serpent's head poking out of the toilet bowl.

"The landlord is confused? Why can't I [flush the toilet]?" Lantanoy wrote in the caption of the post, translated into English. "Not going down no matter what pops up I can't crawl up. I'm stuck when I step back. I'm in trouble. Ending well. Prepare to release back to nature."

There are three types of python native to Thailand: reticulated pythons, Burmese pythons and Brongersma's blood pythons. The species that became trapped was not confirmed, but the pictures show that the snake's coloration most strongly resembled that of a reticulated python.

Reticulated pythons are the longest snakes in the world, reaching up to 21 feet long and weights of around 165 pounds. They are found in rainforests and woodlands around Southeast Asia. They usually feed on rodents, but also have been found to eat primates, pigs, and even house pets in human-populated regions.

Burmese pythons and Brongersma's blood pythons are smaller in stature, only growing to around 16 feet and 6 feet long, respectively. Burmese pythons are considered invasive species and pests in Florida, where they were brought over by the pet trade.

These snakes are not venomous, but instead their prey by constriction, squeezing their victims to the point of asphyxiation before swallowing them whole. The snakes' specialized jaws allow them to swallow prey much larger than themselves, with deer, alligators and even humans having been found inside the bellies of pythons.

Lantanoy contacted a local rescue team to help remove the massive snake from the plumbing pipes of his home, where it had become wedged. After not being able to pull the snake free, they disconnected the pipes and cut the creature free.

The pictures posted by Lantanoy also showed the snake's body entirely blocking a pipe, and the snake's gargantuan size after it had been removed, weighing in at a whopping 50.7 pounds.

Both the python and Lantanoy were uninjured by the ordeal. Pythons have been previously found emerging from toilets in Thailand, and have ended up biting unlucky humans as they sat down. One woman from Samut Prakan, central Thailand was bitten on the finger and the buttocks as she sat down in 2020, while in 2016, one very unlucky man from Chachoengsao Province was bitten on the penis.

Do you have an animal or nature story to share with Newsweek? Do you have a question about pythons? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.

Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters