This is the heart-stopping moment an animal catcher was almost bitten by a ferocious python caught hiding in a family's roof.

The rescue team was contacted by a pensioner who found the wild snake in his home in Saraburi, central Thailand on July 23 afternoon.

The 14ft long python was in the rain pipe when the rescuers arrived. The team pulled and brought it down.

However, the unrelenting snake lunged at one of the rescuers which knocked him over onto a concrete pipe. The rescuers eventually caught the snake and it was placed into a sack to be released into the wild a few miles away from the village.

Property owner Settapong Chanthat, 67, said he first thought the creature on his roof was a cat.

He said: "I had been hearing sounds on the roof for several days already.

"I thought it was a cat so I just left it but today my wife told me to check and I was shocked to discover it was a snake."