![\"Qi\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/176544365800-197-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n Beijing
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Qi Weihao recently welcomed a new family member \u2013 a beautiful, highly venomous, blue snake.\n <\/p>\n
\n The 21-year-old from central Jiangxi province bought the Indonesian pit viper for 1,850 yuan ($260) two days after the release of Disney\u2019s animated hit \u201cZootopia 2\u201d on November 26.\n <\/p>\n
\n Qi\u2019s favorite character was also the franchise\u2019s newest: Gary De\u2019Snake, believed to be inspired by the Southeast Asian serpent.\n <\/p>\n
\n As a reptile lover, Qi had long wanted a blue snake, but he finally went ahead and got one after seeing the positive and adorable portrayal of the snake character, voiced by Ke Huy Quan.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cZootopia 2 helps give reptile pets a better image \u2013 they\u2019re not oddballs; and Gary is the most representative character among them,\u201d Qi told CNN. \u201cI love his enthusiastic attitude and his sense of responsibility.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The film \u2013 which landed toward the end of the Year of the Snake in the Chinese zodiac \u2013 has become China\u2019s top-grossing foreign animation of all time, taking more than 3.55 billion yuan ($503 million) so far at the box office. The record was previously held by the first \u201cZootopia\u201d film, released in 2016.\n <\/p>\n
\n Globally, \u201cZootopia 2\u201d has surpassed $1 billion at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo, a website owned by IMDb that tracks box office data.\n <\/p>\n
\n In the movie, Gary sets out to clear his family\u2019s \u2013 and all reptiles\u2019 \u2013 reputation, with the help of the original film\u2019s protagonists, bunny-fox duo Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde.\n <\/p>\n
\n Qi added that reptile owners like him have long faced prejudice in China, often considered to have \u201ca weird taste for \u2018creepy\u2019 creatures.\u201d He hopes Gary De\u2019Snake can help improve their image.\n <\/p>\n
\n He\u2019s not the only one who adores the film\u2019s blue snake so much that they\u2019d like to have a real-life version, despite its venom.\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Since the movie\u2019s release, major Chinese e-commerce platforms have seen a surge in searches and an uptick in prices for the Indonesian pit viper \u2013 commonly known as \u201cisland bamboo pit viper\u201d in China \u2013 with its costs ranging from a few hundred to several thousand yuan, Chinese state media outlet The Paper reported.\n <\/p>\n
\n Reptiles have increasingly captured young Chinese people\u2019s hearts in recent years. More than 17 million people in the country owned exotic pets by the end of 2024, according to data cited by Chinese state news agency Xinhua, which said the market size was approaching 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion). More than 60% of them were from Gen Z, the data said.\n <\/p>\n
\n A 2025 report on China\u2019s pet industry noted snakes make up over 50% of all the reptiles being kept as pets.\n <\/p>\n
\n Most of these reptiles are raised and tamed by humans before being sold in physical stores, while some are available through online vendors who typically ship them directly to the buyers, according to Chinese state media reports.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to Chinese laws and regulations, mailing \u201cvarious live animals\u201d or \u201cdangerous items like toxins\u201d is prohibited, but raising the Indonesian pit viper is not illegal.\n <\/p>\n
\n The growing interest in buying a highly poisonous snake online has raised official concern. Qi, a seasoned reptile pet owner who drove 40 minutes to collect his snake in person, agrees it is not a decision to take lightly.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t have extensive experience and safe equipment for raising snakes, please don\u2019t rush into keeping venomous snakes on a whim!\u201d Qi warned.\n <\/p>\n
\n Chinese state-linked media The Beijing News also commented that \u201cin the movie, the blue snake is imbued with endearing and brave human-like traits, but the real-life venomous snake, island bamboo pit viper, is far from being a harmless \u2018trendy toy.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf a venomous snake escapes or attacks, it endangers not only the owner and their family but can also escalate into a public safety incident,\u201d the newspaper added.\n <\/p>\n
\n A check by CNN on Friday found the blue pit viper is no longer available for sale on major Chinese e-commerce platforms, including ByteDance\u2019s Douyin, Instagram-like Xiaohogshu nor Alibaba\u2019s second-hand marketplace Xianyu. But there were still numerous listings on JD \u2013\u2013 China\u2019s largest online retailer\ufeff \u2013\u2013 marked \u201cmailing included.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n When CNN informed JD, the items were promptly taken down. A JD spokesperson said: \u201cWe strictly prohibit the sale of venomous animals on our platform and once identified, the items are removed immediately.\u201d CNN has also reached out to Alibaba, ByteDance and Xiaohongshu for reasons behind the related removals.\n <\/p>\n
\n Other Gary fans in China are opting to spend their money on safer snake-themed merchandise.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Taobao, the blue snake character blind box, where buyers don\u2019t know what\u2019s exactly inside before they unbox it, made it into the top 10 weekly best-sellers on Friday, and the character-based plush toys are also highly sought-after in stores offline.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re currently out of stock on the Gary plushie, and it may not be available anytime soon,\u201d a worker at Shanghai Disneyland told YiCai, a state-owned Chinese news outlet, about a week after Zootopia 2\u2019s release.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to statistics from YiCai, the Zootopia franchise has co-branded with over 70 Chinese brands \u2013 especially in the trendy collectibles market \u2013 including Pop Mart, whose Labubu dolls gained global popularity earlier this year.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beijing \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Qi Weihao recently welcomed a new family member \u2013 a beautiful, highly venomous, blue snake. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-350992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}