LEWISTON - Richard Burton was told he would be capturing a 3-foot snake, but the serpent that rose out of the washing machine just kept coming.

All 8 feet of it.

"That thing came right up at me and almost got me in the eyeballs," Burton said. "It was a lot bigger than I expected it to be."

It was no picnic for the woman who discovered the snake, either. That was a Gorham woman who was retrieving a load of laundry from her washer at about 6 p.m. She pulled out a pair of wet jeans and reached back in.

That's when she felt something slither under her hand.

"She was still crying when I left her house," Burton said, hours after he was called to retrieve the animal.

Animals experts later identified the snake as most likely a reticulated python, one of the longest snakes in the world.

Burton, who operates Maine Animal Damage Control, brought the snake to Lewiston from Gorham so it could be identified and handled by experts here.

An animal control officer in Gorham did not want to handle it. Police begged off the task, as well.

Burton retrieved the snake by reaching into the washing machine for it with nothing more than a pair of welding gloves. It was not a loving relationship between man and beast.

"When I pulled it out of the machine, he sprayed all over the place," Burton said. "He got around my hand and just shut the blood flow right off. He's not very happy with anybody. I think he's hungry."

Burton got the snake into a bag and made the long drive to Lewiston. Animal Control Officer Wendell Strout was waiting for him. So was Jen Lewis, a wildlife rehabilitator who works at the Kennel Shop on East Avenue.

Lewis is said to have an eye for snakes and was crucial to identifying it so the others would know what to do with it. Based on an early description, it was believed the snake might be an Anaconda.

"I expected its head to be broader," Lewis said after getting her first glimpse of the snake. "His eyes are absolutely gorgeous. It looks like he has copper pennies for eyes."

Strout called some of his people. Lewis called experts of her own. The final conclusion: The snake was most likely a fanged python.

"I'm nearly a hundred percent sure," Lewis said.

Burton stood in the center of the Kennel Shop with the snaked coiled around his wrist while the various experts discussed it. There was some question over whether the python might be venomous.

However, further research revealed that though reticulated pythons kill prey with their teeth, they are non-venomous.

Which may or may not be a source of relief for the woman who found it. She was not identified Wednesday night.

Lewis and Strout made plans to house the snake overnight before it would be taken to a wildlife refuge, possibly a zoo in York.

How the snake got into a washing machine in Gorham remained a mystery. Burton, the wildlife handler, said the woman who found it owns the building and is certain that no snakes were kept there as pets.

"It just appeared there," Strout said. "They will likely never know how it got there."

He also advised that he does not expect to see more of this type of python in a residential setting any time soon. It was his first in 10 years.

"That type of snake in this area is very, very rare," Strout said. "This is certainly an isolated incident."

In other words, snakes in the washing machine probably won't work as an excuse to get out of doing laundry.