Duan Qiongxiu, 66, thought she had thieves in her house after hearing scratching noises in the middle of the night. What she did not expect to find was something that seemed to have been spawned from a science fiction novel.

"I turned on the light and saw this monster working its way along the wall using its claw," said Duan of Suining city in the Sichuan province.

She was so scared upon seeing the creature that she grabbed a nearby shoe and beat it to death immediately. Afterward, she carefully picked the snake up with chopsticks and preserved it in a bottle of alcohol.

The snake, approximately 40 cm long and about as thick as a little finger, had a four-clawed foot growing 15 cm from its head. Snake expert Long Shuai stated that determining what kind of snake it was would take further investigation, as the snake was not yet fully grown and its color had changed due to being soaked in alcohol.

Regarding the snake's clawed foot, Long commented, "We won't know the cause until we've conducted an autopsy."

(China.org.cn September 17, 2009)